In Truth Freedom
by Eirian1
Summary: Teyla participates in a potentially deadly meditation to unlock her memory. Will she discover the truth is a key to freedom – and will she still hear a desperate cry for help? Virtual Season 5 Episode 5
1. Act 1

Author's disclaimer: I do not own _Stargate Atlantis_ and its associated characters. MGM does, for which, for the most part, they have my utmost respect. No copyright infringement is intended in writing these stories.

My deepest respect also goes to the talented actors that brought to life the characters we see in _Stargate Atlantis._ My portrayal of the characters here is based on my perception of the work of Joe Flanigan, Jason Momoa, Rachel Luttrell, Paul McGillion, David Hewlett, Amanda Tapping, Robert Picardo and Connor Trinneer. Without these people and those that came before them, there would have been no _Atlantis_ as we know it today.

Other assorted original characters (i.e. those that don't really appear in the show) are my own creation, and they, along with the original material presented here are © Eirian Phillips 2008.

Story is rated for mature readers, according to whatever rating system is adopted these days for Fan Fiction. It changes on a site by site basis… It was so much easier way back when…

There may be other virtual seasons of _SGA_ out there in cyberspace. Some may even be unofficially official. However, as a writer, I don't believe that this should discourage others from having their own ideas about things. Mine are presented here.

I can be reached at Feedback is always welcome and emails are usually answered.

Characters and events are purely fictitious, and any similarity to anyone living, transformed, dead, cloned or in any alternate universe or timeline is entirely coincidental.

Stargate Atlantis

**In Truth…Freedom**

Question Everything

_"All these worlds filled with people, busying themselves with their pathetic lives. They come and they go, they live and they die and the galaxy is no better for it…"_

_Michael – Search & Rescue_

_(Mantle)_

**Previously On Stargate Atlantis:**

"The joint taskforce is sending a representative to… assist; to gather more information, and to back you up. I believe you already know each other. Professor Varnerin."

"Varnerin? Reuben Varnerin?" Woolsey couldn't stop the frown from crossing his face.

"The same," she said. "The DHS believe he has the necessary skill set to help… alleviate the problem."

"But I thought he—"

"An unfortunate misunderstanding," she interrupted smoothly, "A senate committee delivered their findings very recently on the subject of the alleged incident and he was cleared of all wrong-doing."

**

The man that stepped through the Gate was tall, and dark, and not at all handsome. His face was scarred on the one side, and the story was that one of his former patients had covered him with gasoline and set him on fire. His blue eyes were completely devoid of warmth as he swept his gaze around the Gate Room, and the dark suit that he wore only accentuated the impression of a brooding, crow-like presence.

"Richard Woolsey," he greeted the man, and though he sounded glad, and held out his hand for the requisite handshake, the coldness in his eyes did not change.

"Professor Varnerin," Woolsey said, shaking the man by the hand and gesturing toward the interior of the city. "Welcome to Atlantis."

**

"Please, Todd," she whispered, her voice full of pain and fear, "don't let me die."

Todd breathed out long and slow. He frowned, and barely tilted his head at her appeal. It would be easy to do that – to turn the situation around and report to the Queen that the Abomination had planted a poisoned apple in their midst and that he had been the instrument of the Queen's salvation, the removal of the threat to her, in discovering the infection in the girl.

"Please…" she whispered again, and her hand trembled against the side of his neck.

On the other hand, her death would weaken his position; his ability could be called into question, and perhaps his resources limited only to those he needed in connection with his work for the Queen. He would no longer have the satisfaction of knowing that at any moment the Queen could make a fatal mistake and that his could be the power to save her, and displace all those that would come before him.

He let out another long, almost hissed sigh, on the end of the breath he finally voiced his thoughts. "Alicia Vega, what are you to me?"

**

"It's a file. One file," McKay said, throwing up his hand as if it insulted his intelligence to have done all that work for only one file. "And it isn't even a very interesting file, it's just an image. One image? That's all that he could give us? An image? Throw us a bone, why don't you, Mister Friendly-Wraith. I—"

Sheppard frowned, watching the way Doctor Keller was peering at the screen. "What is it?" he asked, cutting off McKay's tirade.

"It's a visual representation of an amino acid chain," Doctor Keller answered, and then asked, "Why would he give us that?"

"He's a Wraith," Woolsey broke in. "No doubt he's just toying with us."

"No," Sheppard said, pointing to the screen. "If Todd gave us that, he gave it to us for a reason."

**

"When he first started to develop the drug it took approximately one in every six of them this way." Todd frowned and looked toward the alcove from which the hybrid spoke. "They all died. You're wasting your time."

"And yet…" Todd rumbled, still looking across at the hybrid, who stood dispassionately watching him. "…you are here, and are infected. Therefore he must have found a way to neutralise the issue causing this particular reaction."

"You're assuming that he didn't just start over and take a different route," the hybrid said.

"And I suppose you are about to suggest that if I… refrain from experimenting on you, you will tell me which of these avenues of possibility I should investigate first." Todd raised an eyebrow.

"I know that I won't survive your experiments," the hybrid confirmed softly. "And I very much want to continue living."

**

Todd turned and looked on the mutated hybrid. It was still humanoid, though bent and twisted as though the frame on which its flesh hung had somehow buckled. One of its hands had swollen, and was club-like, bruised and blackened. The hair that hung from its head was lank and colourless, as though bleached… and was patchy where the mutant had scratched at its misshapen head, but it was the eyes that were most chilling… Wraithlike, no more the pale, colourless orbs the hybrids usually seemed to have, but bloodshot as though in great hunger.

**

_=The net is closing. Your research… it is ready?=_

_~progressing, my Queen~_

Todd gathered every part of him to make the lie convincing. He had been concentrating almost solely on the solution to the Hoffan problem, and his primary reason for having been brought aboard the Elder Queen's Hive had been pushed aside.

**

"Don't you feel used?" the hybrid behind him asked softly. "I mean, what is it she expects you to do for her? Remove our Wraith DNA? Make us human again and therefore weak? Have you given any thought to what will happen if you should succeed?"

Todd stopped, and drew away from the microscope, then turning to face the hybrid, said, "I have given it a great deal of thought and above all it will ensure the survival of my kind in a universe that seeks to destroy us."

"But the Queen—"

"She was here at the beginning, and she will see us safely thought this next evolution of history. It is what they _do._" Todd snapped.

"Tell me then," the hybrid asked, "what makes being of your kind deserving of survival, over all others."

"We are Wraith," Todd answered, snarling just a little, and as though that reminded him of his experiment in progress, he began to mix together the required components to create a larger batch of the compound he would use as a test on one of the three remaining hybrids. This time, the results would not be the unrecognisable regression toward a baser life form.

**

Michael turned to face his lieutenant as he entered the room, already knowing what the hybrid would tell him, but taking a breath, needing to hear it anyway.

"The Elder's Hive has just left hyperspace and is approaching the planet." the hybrid said as he came to a halt and handed a Wraith tablet to Michael.

"So," Michael said softly, "time has caught me." He sighed and reviewed the data on the tablet. "All is prepared, the arrangements have been made?"

"Everything is in place," his lieutenant confirmed. "And Atlantis?"

"Atlantis will take care of itself," Michael answered darkly.

**

"I took a sample of Lorne's blood, and added the serum to it. The result was almost instantaneous. The serum stopped the Wraith cells from feeding – stabilised them completely. I realised that it was the only way to save the major, but…"

"…it's also made this change irreversible." Sheppard finished her sentence, and she nodded sadly.

"At least by me," she said.

**

"When we brought Teyla back to Atlantis from Michael's facility on M7S-445, Doctor Keller took blood and tissue samples."

"Standard medical protocol," Sheppard said, "of course she did. Especially since Teyla had just recently given birth, I'm sure she wanted to make sure that everything was all right, she—"

"Doctor Keller found strong traces of… Wraith DNA in the samples, especially in those…" he paused, and when he finished the sentence, Sheppard realised he had been trying to be subtle, "… that bore relevance to the baby."

"Okay," Sheppard said slowly, drawing out the word, not entirely following the direction of McKay's concern. "But… Teyla has Wraith DNA in her genetic make-up anyway and..."

"…Kanaan has—_had_ 'the gift' too," Ronon cut in, "wouldn't that—?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then what do you _mean_, Rodney?" Sheppard said, becoming irritated with dancing around the issue.

McKay sighed again, and a pained expression crossed his face as he blurted out, "Keller found elements of Michael's DNA in the blood samples."

**

"And you remember nothing of that time?" her friend asked softly.

"Very little," Teyla said, "Snippets only, and those I do recall are disjointed and confused, as they come to me mostly in dreams."

"But you are afraid that something terrible has been done to you," Raisa said. "Without even knowing you the way I do, it's obvious. This creature… this _monster_—"

"Raisa, please, I know you will not understand this, but…" Teyla stopped, and sighed heavily. "I share a connection with Michael. I _feel_ him… even now."

**

_"Look at me," he told her. The emotion in his voice made her want to and looking up she saw the anguish in his expression. "I need you to understand, they have left me no choice. There is no other way."_

_"What have you done?" she gasped, as more painful convulsions spread through her._

_"I've given you a massive dose of a Wraith neural enzyme. Your body already produces it, and beyond this… physical discomfort, you won't be harmed. But it's necessary if I'm to do what I have to do… to keep you safe."_

**

"Teyla, it is dangerous… and reckless… and—" Halling paced and ran his fingers through his hair, looking at Colonel Sheppard, and past him at Doctor Keller, both of whom had accompanied her to the new Athosian settlement, whose numbers were recently swelled by the addition of the survivors from Mikalos.

"Halling, please," Teyla caught him in his pacing and placed a hand onto each of his shoulders. "I understand the dangers, but… there is no more hope. For me this is my last and I _must_ know. I _must_ find those memories."

**

She stared at the candle flame until it was the only thing that she could see… a point of brightness in the dark that was all that she had lost… she pictured him… building his face… drawing it out of the darkness beyond the candle flame… shining… his golden eyes…

**

_One of his hands moved to cradle the back of her head, keeping her eyes locked with his as she stopped struggling against him. More so in that moment than in any other she felt him… the press of his hand against the small of her back, his fingers wound into her hair and the heat of his body pressed close against hers. Her tiny hands trembled against his chest as the darkness of his mind began to close in on her… pushing through all that she knew… all that she remembered._

_"Forgive me, Teyla…" he craved._

**

Stepping closer, keeping in close quarters, Michael struck in quick succession against the Wraith Scientist, unarmed, but no less able to hurt his rival. He hit out time and time again, his fist striking at Todd, and blocking the answering attacks that he made. Yet, even as many times as Michael blocked the blows, and deflected the knife aimed his way, an equal number slipped past his defences, the pain was mounting, he was tiring, his movements slowing, perpetuating the vicious circle the fight had become. Still, as hard as it was, he _would not_ yield to this Wraith.

Michael grabbed Todd's wrist, trying to bend the hand that held the knife, to bring it around under him. Todd resisted with all the strength he still possessed, pulled the knife back as it twisted one way and then another. Then suddenly Michael thrust his shoulder against him, grabbing him around the waist and using the momentum to topple them both toward the ground.

They collided with the workbench, overbalanced and both hit the ground hard, with the knife beneath them, and for a long time, neither combatant moved.

**

_=let them come=_

Her guards approached the middle of her chamber, dragging a semiconscious figure between them. Quickly, but sure to appear unhurried, she rose from her throne, and began to descend the steps, frowning and turning her head to watch the approaching scientist that accompanied the guards.

"I made a promise to you, My Queen," the scientist said softly, inclining his head in a small bow. He gestured toward the prisoner.

The Queen turned quickly and flicked her hands toward the guards. They let go of the prisoner and the semiconscious figure, suddenly unsupported, staggered a few steps before the strength in his legs gave way and he sank to his knees, in spite of an obvious effort to remain upright. He began to slump forward, but caught himself, leaning on a torn and bloodied arm.

With growing satisfaction she unleashed the full force of the mental command on the unfortunate prisoner, on his knees before her. She watched as the trembling began, felt the mental struggle. He was strong even in such a physically weakened state.

_=look at me= =look at me= =look at me=_

She tightened her mental grasp still further, and relished the sounds of his physical discomfort, watching the tendons straining on the side of his neck as he fought her; relished the sound of the cry that came from his throat, past clenched teeth as he finally began to succumb and raised his head toward her….

…and she shivered, as at last the eyes, slowly rising from the floor of the chamber, finally met hers, and she saw the cold, hard fury of hatred burning in the Wraithlike golden orbs that captured hers as she finally came face to face with the Abomination.

***

_"You still have your pride. Good for you."_

_Michael – The Last Man_

**Act 1**

_=look at me= =at me= =me=_

The crushing presence in Michael's mind, familiar and deadly, lent strength to his resolve if not to his body. He _would not_ obey; would defy her until the last shuddering breath in his body prevented his insolence.

The floor of the chamber under him was bathed in shifting, pulsating redness, so much that the blood, which dripped from his bruised and torn arms, became lost in the ebb and flow of her anger.

Every muscle trembled uncontrollably as he strained to resist the fire that burned along every nerve with the desire to move, until at last, stifling the cry of effort that rose in his throat, he began to raise his head toward her.

He kept his eyes downturned until the very last, but even that small satisfaction faded the moment his eyes swept over her.

The folds of her deep red gown did little to hide the unique ancient Wraith physique. The characters, so carefully and painstakingly inked over her pale flesh, marked her as the life and strength of the Hive. He had not forgotten… would never forget.

Cold, hard fury… hatred… swept through him as their eyes finally met and he could not help but wonder if she even remembered the Wraith that he had once been.

The thought filled him with sudden wry amusement. How many millennia had it been? How many others had come and gone at her behest? How many others had graced her—?

He tensed, anticipating the blow as she drew back her arm, cutting off his sarcastic contemplation of the servitude of her Commanders. The back of her hand struck him, hard, across the face. The metal at the tips of her fingers, the dull sides of the sharp blades she wore, drawing more scratches over his already bruised face.

_=How I rule my Hive… any Hive… is of no concern to you=_

_"My child… is of no concern to you!"_

The harshness, the finality of the mocking tone, and the memory combined, stung more than the Queen's brutal blow, and under the pain of it, he fell forward, his aching arms no longer able to support him, he hit the floor of the chamber, and rolled to the side.

"Take him away," she ordered, "Remind him how he should behave in the presence of a Queen."

**

The flame still burned bright in her awareness, a light in the gathered press of dark around her. Still the vision she had made… of his eyes… golden and shining, as bright in the dark as the burning candle that anchored her to life, dominated her sight.

Her breathing was laboured, and she moaned softly as Halling, supporting her still, mopping away the exertion of the inner battle she fought, shifted behind her, to ease the pressure on both of their bodies.

Abruptly, as if suddenly a switch had been thrown, the resistance against which she had, for hours, been so terribly struggling, ceased.

An unexpected, dreadful pain flooded through each nerve and muscle, spreading from that point of sudden non-resistance to subsume her; possess her in its cruel raking; stifle her. Teyla finally gave voice to the bubbling in the back of her throat and screamed.

"No!" Halling snapped, speaking quickly, urgent and firm in his command. "Focus… Focus…!"

"Bur— bur—" she gasped.

"Teyla—"

"It burns!" she cried out again. "H— Ha—"

"Focus!" Halling told her as she began to struggle with him, against his supportive, restrictive grasp. He raised his voice just a little, "Find that point again, Teyla, and focus!"

She fought to breathe, to obey… to find those shining golden eyes that filled her mind, and couldn't help but cry out for him.

_More so in that moment than in any other she felt him… the press of his hand against the small of her back, his fingers wound into her hair and the heat of his body pressed close against hers. His mind the constricting darkness that had closed in on her…she pushed…_

"Michael!"

_-forgive me, Teyla- -forgive me- -forgive-_

Time flowed, like white water, backwards up the perilous rocky falls… a dizzying spin, dragging her in its reversed current, drowning her in everything she could not grasp at such speeds, in such a whirlpool…

"Focus…" Halling whispered softly, and everything stopped.

Teyla could feel him, the presence of his mind in hers, even as he stood waiting… poised and watchful beside the console. Her own muscles tensed in response to the control by which he held himself in stillness. As the cruiser pitched again from another explosion, this one somewhere deep within the ship itself, her belly twisted, tensing in worry. She folded her arms across her torso, deeply afraid for her child.

_-as soon as it is safe, we will leave-_

…_Safe to leave…?_

She did not understand how it could not be safer to leave than to stay.

His confidence of that safety flooded into her through their mental contact. It warmed her, insulated her from the fear. She still did not understand, but in that moment it did not matter.

She heard Michael instruct the one hybrid that remained in the control room, "As soon as we're clear, target the remaining Hive. Force them to make the jump to hyperspace."

"I understand," he said, dispassionately.

With the two remaining soldiers at his side, Michael turned and started toward the waiting ships – toward her. They were half way across the launch bay when the cruiser rattled in the aftermath of another explosion. It was beginning to tear itself apart.

Pain, sudden, deep and penetrating tightened the ache from her back like a vice around her middle. It was brief, fleeting, but unmistakable.

Michael's head snapped up and back to capture her with his eyes, burning now in deep concern that was coloured with his anger toward the Lanteans.

_They were the cause of this added danger to her now. But for their interference she would be settled and safe in the facility he had chosen for this, not fleeing from the midst of battle at such a time._

"Protect her. Protect the child," he ordered the hybrids who would pilot the Darts. Then he began to quickly climb aboard his ship.

…_Michael…_

She could not contain the sob as she mentally called out for him. She closed her eyes and tried to will her body into acquiescence, holding her arms tightly around herself.

…_my son ~ my child, please wait…_

"Teyla, look at me."

"Michael," she sobbed his name again, aloud this time, but shook her head in refusal to follow his command. "My child… my baby is coming."

_-Look at me- -at me- -me-_

Under the press of his mind, she raised her head and opened her eyes to fall into the almost luminous gold. He drew her deeper, surrounding her, possessing her.

_-Trust me- -trust me- -trust-_

She began to feel heavy, a deep lethargy covered her like a blanket and she had to fight to keep her eyes open. Events blurred. She barely felt the sharpness of the needle as he fixed an intravenous line into her forearm, or the movement of his hands as he settled her properly into the flight seat and fastened the harness around her.

The nausea at the sudden rush of speed and light against the artificial gravity of the ship and the abrupt freefall into the darkness of space before the inertial dampeners stabilised, lit only by the flash of battle around them, became a half remembered memory. Only the promise remained.

_-I will protect you. No matter what, I will protect you both- -protect you both- -protect-_

"Protect," she whispered, deep in the memory. "Trust…"

Deeper she drifted, her mind unlocked and all of her past now open to her. Where before, there had been nothing, now all of it sang to her, through her blood, through her body, through the remembrances of her body, muscle and bone.

He had sedated her, and then anaesthetised her completely for the duration of the desperate flight away from the battle… away from the fear of death that had gripped her, subsumed her, and brought the two of them closer together…

She surfaced in a rush, and gasped as though she were a drowning woman striking for the surface of a river, to escape the undertow. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye.

Michael came towards her and lowered himself to sit on the side of the low bed on which she found herself. An unexpected burst of mistrust rushed through her and she scrambled, against the tightness in her belly, to sit up. She moved away from him, pressed against the cushioned board at the head of the bed.

"What is this place?" she asked, her voice as taught as the muscles in her belly.

He froze as she moved away, and lowered the hand, with which he had been reaching toward her, to his lap. His eyes shifted away, almost darting one way, then another before he looked at her again, swallowing hard. Then he answered.

"We will be safe here," he said, "for a time at least."

"That does not answer my question," she said, tightening her jaw against her growing discomfort.

"One of my facilities," he answered, matter of fact. "Not my preferred location, but good enough; safe enough to serve us while you give birth to the child."

As if his words reminded her that the coming of her child was the cause of her discomfort, she voiced the small sob she had not realised she had been holding inside.

Michael gestured around them, and in spite of her fearful anger, she followed his lead, looking where he indicated. Around the low, undeniably comfortable, bed hung drapes in warm, earth tones. It masked the clinical coldness of the room beyond, even though the one side, on which Michael sat, was still open to it. The drapes were familiar to her, almost Athosian. At that thought she looked back at him, surprised.

"Some of your people," he said softly, almost with a shrug, "I asked them to help me make the process as… comfortable as possible."

His eyes shifted away again, almost in a kind of soft awkwardness at revealing that to her, and for a moment she softened toward him. She was touched at the concern it showed, but in that same moment she looked down at herself, noticing for the first time that she was no longer dressed in the clothes she had been, but a shapeless, loose fitting robe.

Anger and more than a little embarrassment gripped her and she lashed out, slapping him, hard, across the face. He blinked, and his lips tightened for a moment, but otherwise he did not move.

"You would prefer that I had left you dressed, to struggle as you labour?" he said softly, finally tilting his head to the side. There was no sarcasm in the tone, just honest query, and that bothered her more than if he had been mocking her anger. Fear twisted inside her and stole her breath, and in the wake of it she lashed out again. This time he caught her wrist. "Teyla, I have not, nor will I harm you. You _must _understand that. Have I not promised to protect the both of you?"

He had. And so far he had not proven anything other than true to his word. She trembled a little, and tried to pull against his restraining grasp, but he did not let go. As she began to formulate her answer to him, the sharpness of a strong contraction snuffed out what little remained of her indignation. It surprised her in both its suddenness and intensity, and she cried out, and tried to take another breath at the same time. She called to him in sudden desperate appeal, "Michael!"

He laid her hand onto the top of his shoulder and she gripped him tightly, making another small, gasping cry. As she clung to him, he gently felt around the swell of her belly, as finally the contraction began to fade.

"Good," he said softly as he lifted his hand away, "Your child is correctly positioned."

"How do you—?" she asked, finally able to catch her breath. She continued to hold him, as he picked her up, to move her to a more comfortable position. Then she lay her head against his shoulder beside her hand as he moved her, "Michael, I can't…"

_-Teyla-_

"This is as it must be," he told her as he almost tenderly set her down again, and helped her to lie back against the supportive pillows behind her, until finally he slid his hand along her arm, and lifted her fingers away from his shoulder. For a short time he held her hand in his.

"Why?" she clung to him as he arranged the pillows again. Another pain gripped her, stealing the rest of the question from her lips.

"Because I need him," he told her, and he sounded almost apologetic as he freed himself from her grasp. "What must be done cannot be done without him."

At his words, tears of fear and anger came to her eyes and she looked away. He must have seen because he reached to cup the side of her face in his hand, to make her look at him again. "I will not harm him. Why can't you just accept that?"

"Because—" she started, and was forced to stop again as another pain stole her breath. Her anger evaporated. He was the only one who could help her. She reached for him again, and gasped, "Michael, please…!"

He pushed aside her hands as she pleaded with him and said, "We must do this, and then you must rest… trust me…" For barely a heartbeat he caught one of her flailing hands, and laid it, beneath his own, against his chest. His heart beat strongly beneath her fingers, even as the tight wave of pain came crashing over her.

_-trust-_

…_why…?_

"Tell me why?" She voiced the thought that gripped her mind.

The hard edge in his eyes softened and for a moment he looked as though he would speak. His lips shaped her name.

"Yes… please, Michael!"

He sighed and let go of the hand he held against his chest, his jaw tightening just a little as he looked at her face. He shifted as though he would stand. She feared he would not answer her; reframed her question, needing to understand.

"Michael, why are you doing this…?" she laid her hand on his arm as he moved to rise.

For a moment he looked at it before he began to speak. "All these worlds filled with people, busying themselves with their pathetic lives. They come and they go, they live and they die and the galaxy is no better for it. But your son – your son will be an instrument of change."

"I'm afraid," she gripped his arm suddenly with the onset of another contraction.

"Will you allow me to help you?" he asked gently.

"Yes," she gasped. "Please, Michael, I—"

"For a brief period, I was able to access Atlantis' medical database," he told her softly, and he let go of her hand, laying it gently onto her belly. She frowned at him a little, wondering how. Before she could ask, he tipped his head to the side, catching her eyes with his in a gesture of query. His hand rested against her thigh and his eyes flicked downward before returning to meet hers. Seeking permission…

_-the child inside of you is ready to be born-_

She closed her eyes in a long, slow blink, and nodded, taking her lip between her teeth. When she opened them again he was still regarding her softly.

"How?" she finally asked to cover her uncertainty as he began to move. He blinked at her – incomprehension. "The Atlantis database."

She closed her eyes as she felt the movement of fabric against her body; the warmth of his hand against her. She bit her lip and stifled a soft whimper. He instantly stopped moving and called her name softly.

"It is all right," she said, shaking her head, refusing to open her eyes. "Just tell me how."

As he completed his examination, he told her, "It does not matter how. What is important is that I now understand the process of human birth." Almost tenderly he covered her once more and drew up a soft blanket over her. "I will not let anything happen to you, Teyla. You or the child."

"I know," she whispered, as she felt him move away. The admission brought tears to her eyes, that for a time she fought to keep inside, listening to the sounds of his movement; of the slight splash of water, the metallic rattle of a buckle. Soon the emotion of it became too overwhelming for her to contain and the tears spilled out onto her cheeks.

"What is this?" she had not heard him return to her and jumped at the gentle touch of the side of his hand against the wetness on her face. She opened her eyes and watched as he sat on the side of the bed once more. He had removed the stiff, leather coat he wore, and appeared almost approachable in the linen shirt. It made the tears come even more. "Why do you weep?"

"I… I feel so alone," she confessed.

He sighed, and closed his eyes for a moment.

"I understand," he said softly. Needing to feel the contact, she reached for him, but he caught her hand and, while he held it, gently in his own, he pressed a restraining touch with the other against her shoulder. "You need to rest as much as you can through these coming contractions. Your body still needs a little more time to adjust before you will be ready to bring the child to birth. I will remain here."

_-you are safe… rest- -safe…rest- -rest-_

She tried, but the tightening band of pressure from each contraction grew ever more frequent, ever more intense, and she gripped his hand more and more tightly as the pain mounted.

Through each moment, through every long hour of her labour he remained, gently mopping her brow of the perspiration that her continued effort to resist, as he had told her she must, had caused; dripping sweetened water onto her parched lips; ensuring what small comforts he could bring to her as the needs of the moments dictated.

Long after the rush of wetness burst from within her, she could no longer easily resist her body's urge to push the child from inside her. She called to him in desperate mental appeal, the tone of her voice as she echoed the mind to mind touch was almost frantic.

…_help me…_

"Michael, I cannot—"

As he moved from her side at last, she welcomed his touch against her body. His hand felt cool against the burning she had become, as he repeated the examination, and nodded slowly.

"Good," he said, "now we can proceed."

Carefully he helped her to move, adjusted the pillows to support her more fully, made of himself a lever against which she could rest her bended knees, and still be in a position to help bring the baby into the world.

She gave a gasping cry as the newest contraction wrapped itself around and through her… her flailing hand caught the front of his shirt and she made a claw of her fingers against his chest, holding on to him as she obeyed her body's command.

"Yes," he encouraged her softly, "feel the beat of my heart, and use it to guide you."

The stretching, burning fire, that was her only awareness, grew hotter and deeper within her. She lost all track of everything save the labouring of her body and the beat of Michael's heart against her fingers. As each pain swirled and grew inside her she pushed, and pushed hard, barely pausing for breath against the effort.

_-you are tiring, take my strength- take my strength- my strength-_

"Just a little longer, Teyla," he said softly, "the child is coming."

"I cannot!" she gasped.

"You can," he commanded, and looked up to capture her eyes, drawing her in still further.

She took a breath, and cried out as the need to bring the child to birth possessed her, the vice around her middle pushing the descending ache into her very core. His mind in hers was equal in demand… gripping her, leading her, guiding her.

A pause, she barely felt the movement of his hands against her, or the brief clatter of instruments on the metallic tray beside the two of them, before once again she was overcome with the need to free herself from the pushing, stretching heat that was inside of her most intimate space.

A sudden rush, the pressure lessened and suddenly was gone. Her body trembled with the abrupt freedom from it. The vice of command from Michael's mind lessened from her own, but his presence did not leave her entirely… remained like a shadow in the deepest spaces within.

_There is more of a bond between us than you know. Once the child is born, the bond will grow even stronger._

She struggled to see and listened carefully for the cry of the child. Exhausted, unable to move, she could see nothing but the hint of a tiny hand, grasping at the air, or the kicking of a petite foot, as Michael worked on the baby.

"Michael?" she questioned fearfully, when still she did not hear the child's cry.

"All is well, Teyla," he said quietly. "Rest."

As if in confirmation of his words, the baby gave a small cough, and then let out his first indignant cry, as if protesting the cold, protesting the harshness of the world outside of his mother's womb.

"My son," Teyla whispered, and tried to reach for him. Her body answered his small cry with an ache that began in her centre and spread through all of her. Her breasts, heavy with milk, leaked in answer. She watched as Michael wrapped him, and felt the fear returning as she knew then that he meant to take the child. "Wait..."

Ignoring her plea, Michael stood, the wrapped bundle in his arms, and began to turn. She tried to sit up, to catch hold of him and keep him at her side, but she had no strength in her muscles, and her arms were too slow.

"Wait, please," she sobbed the words. "No… Michael, where are you taking him?"

On the border between the almost-Athosian birthing room and the laboratory beyond, Michael stopped and turned back to her.

"He will be quite safe," he told her firmly, "while we finish what must be done."

With that, as she fought to shape the words of protest with her mouth; with a voice that would not cooperate, he turned and left her side, crossing the room to lay the bundle down into a small chamber she could barely see.

Her eyes opened, and she took in a gasping breath, struggled against Halling who still supported her gently.

"He took him, Halling," she said as he released her and turned her to face him. "I have never even seen my son."

Halling reached out and cupped the side of her face gently in his hand, looking into her haunted eyes.

"If you wish to speak of it, Teyla, you know that I am bound by the form of this ritual to listen without judgement, but you must understand that I may find it hard to remain objective, where Michael is concerned." he said.

"I know," she said softy. "Halling, will you walk with me? I feel the need to have the warmth of nature around me."

"You _should_ rest, Teyla," Halling told her. "This meditation is not easy on body or mind. If you are to continue with it—"

"Please, my friend," she said, "walking… will be restful for me – for my mind at least, and I promise afterwards, I will sleep."

Halling looked at her a moment longer, and then nodded. He climbed to his feet and then offered his hand to her. She took it and did not let go as they began to walk.

**

Todd sighed, watching as culture after culture turned out to be the same – the wraith cells subsumed the human cells, and as soon as they had nothing left on which to feed, began mutating again. Nothing he could do, no adjustment he could make to any part of the helix would change that into the stabilisation that he needed to make his experiment a successful one. Sooner or later the Queen was going to want a demonstration and, as it stood, he would fail and fail badly.

He shut down the microscope and moved to return to the computer model, but something in the change of her breathing made him look toward, and then cross the room to, Vega. She gave a little hiccup in her breathing and then her eyes snapped open, and she instantly scrambled away from him, right into the corner of the laboratory, where she drew up her knees, wrapped her arms around them and turned partly sideways to him. Her eyes, however, remained glazed and uncomprehending. She stared in his direction in a startled, fearful way.

He remained still for a moment, before he bent down to pick up one of the blankets from his cot, and then took the few steps to the corner, where she cowered, conscious, but not yet awake, and carefully draped the blanket over her mostly naked form. He gave a moment's thought to carrying her back to the cot, where at least she could wake in comfort, but he doubted that, in her state, she would allow it.

With a soft growl of agreement with his own thoughts, he turned to go and prepare what he might need when she _did _properly wake.

"Todd," she rasped, her throat dry, her voice like fingers moving over paper.

Part way across the room, he turned back, and found her watching him. Her eyes, though heavy and dull with the aftermath of her illness, were at least focussed this time.

"Welcome back," he said softly and returned to her. "How do you feel?"

"Cold," she managed.

"You should return to bed," he came and offered her a hand to help her rise, asking as an afterthought, "Can you stand?"

**

She tried; stubborn independence prevented her from taking his offered hand and, for her sin of pride, she slipped, and began to almost tumble sideways. He reached out and grasped her arm quickly.

"Let me help you." His voice rumbled, a low tenor that sang around her already delicate head.

"I can—" she started, meaning to tell him that she could manage, but someone tilted the deck of the ship and she stumbled sideways, only to have him sweep her feet from under her, wrap her in the blanket and carry her the few short steps to the cot.

"Stubborn woman," he grumbled as he set her down.

As he did, she closed her eyes. She should have answered; should have protested, she knew, at his calling her that, but she did not have the strength. Her body ached, her throat was dry and she was so hungry that she felt as though she was turning inside out. She opened her eyes again to find him holding out a small beaker in her direction.

"What is it?" she whispered. "More medicine?"

"Water," he said in an amused tone.

She reached to take the beaker with both hands, trembling as she held it and began to drink. It was cold, and felt like nectar as it ran down her throat, soothing the ache, filling her with the desire for more. His restraining hand closed over her fingers.

"Slowly," he told her, "you will make yourself sick."

She fought him, as best she could, revived a little by the water, which she never imagined could taste so good.

"Easy for you to say," she snapped at him, breathless from the hurried drinking she had been doing. "You haven't just been rearranged from the inside out."

As if reminded by her words that there were things he should do, to ensure that he had been successful in alleviating her problem, he turned and went to get something from his workbench. She watched him, her eyes narrowed with nervousness as he returned carrying another syringe.

"What's that?" she nodded to the equipment in his hands.

"I need to take some blood, to ensure that the drug I synthesised has been successful." He tilted his head when she drew away from him again. "It would be a shame to have gone through all of that, only for you to become sick again."

"Just blood?" she asked, holding out the now empty beaker for him to take from her. He set it down and then came back, lowering himself to sit on the edge of the cot.

"Just blood," he confirmed, and then held out the syringe to her. "If you would prefer, if you cannot bring yourself to trust me, you can take the sample yourself."

She looked at him in horror. The very thought that he would suggest she poked herself with needles threatened to give her cause to revisit the water she'd just consumed. She didn't particularly have a _problem_ with needles, so long as they were in someone else's hands when they were used. She'd had to give morphine to an injured soldier once, and afterwards, had voided the contents of her belly onto the battlefield beside him. No. She shook her head at him, and instead held out her arm.

"Just—" she started to tell him to be quick.

"I will take great care not to injure you," he reassured her, and as he took the sample, added, "Afterwards, you should rest. It will not be long before the Queen will expect you to be returned to her."

Vega couldn't help but blush as she remembered the reason she was supposed to be with him in the first place. Some darkly curious part of her couldn't help but wonder what such a thing would be like with a Wraith. He had not, after all, specifically answered any of her queries as to whether the Wraith _did_ engage in that kind of thing, had merely surmised that the Queen had 'sent her to his bed' as he had put it, which she supposed implied that they did but—

She flinched a little, as she unconsciously pulled away from him, as her line of thought took such wild directions.

"Be still," he said, thankfully not looking at her reddened face, but at what he was doing. "It will not be much longer."

"Todd?" she asked, almost a whisper in her hesitation. He looked up at her then. His eyes were steady and unwavering as he waited for her question. "What will she— I mean, when I go back, what will—"

"You need not concern yourself with such things," he told her, and she couldn't decide whether or not she liked the tone in his voice as he spoke the words. As he withdrew the needle from her arm, she shivered.

"Easy for you to—"

"How do you feel?" he interrupted, changing the subject, perhaps, but the question reminded her of just how hungry she was, as she sought to answer him.

"I'm starving," she told him, and looked up at him hopeful that he could find her some food. "I feel like I haven't eaten for weeks."

She watched as his expression passed through what looked like a deep, sympathetic understanding of her plight. He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, before he said, "I will find you some food."

"Chicken soup?" she gave him what she hoped was a cute and helpless smile.

He raised an eyebrow, and let out that small, soft rumbling sound from the back of his throat that she had come to associate with his thinking process.

"I will see what I can do," he said afterwards.

**

Halling kept her arm linked through his and walked close to steady her whenever she stumbled. She felt clumsy and uncertain, and a part of her knew that it was the effects of the drug that she had taken to induce the deep meditation, but there was another part of her that felt it could as easily be attributed to the questions that had arisen in her since she had finally been able to remember the birth of her son.

"He had," she continued her retelling of it to Halling, but could not bring herself to look at the tall Athosian at her side, knowing that he, too, had been among Michael's captives, and that this must also be very difficult for him to hear. "He had constructed a part of the room to resemble the birthing huts of our people; said that he had asked of some of you to help him."

"Yes," Halling answered, "He came for Kara and some of the other women, one day, and would not tell us why. When they returned we were only glad for their safety, and thought only that his questions were most odd. You have to remember that none of us knew you were with child."

"I know," she whispered, looking at him at last, to find him regarding her in a kind of soft sadness.

"You have to know, Teyla," he said, "Kanaan has… admired you for some time now, he—"

"Oh, Halling," she stopped walking and squeezed his arm. "Kanaan is dead."

"What?" her news left him reeling, "how?"

"I… do not know," she admitted, for a time disregarding the dreams that had shown him, lying beside her, injured by some kind of dart. "I only know that it is so. I felt it when I woke on Atlantis, and Ronon confirmed the truth of it to me."

"You think Michael—?"

She shrugged, and at the same time shook her head, "I do not know, Halling. All that I know is that he was with me, in the place where they found me. So it could have been Michael, yes. But why? He was one of his hybrids – why would he—?"

_She managed to turn her head toward a sound she had barely registered – high pitched and harsh. Kanaan still stood with his weapon raised, and pointed in her direction._

_"No… Kanaan," she whispered, and as the blue lights of the cruiser began to darken around her, she reached for the one person who had only ever been true to his words to her._

_Michael caught her flailing hand and guided it to his shoulder as his arms came around her, supportive and strong. He gently lowered her to the deck and did not let go of her._

_"She would have fought you," Kanaan's voice held none of the warmth she remembered from their childhood, their friendship. "I know Teyla."_

_"You overreach yourself!" Michael snapped, his voice a whip this time. "Go and join the others. You have work to do."_

"Teyla?" Halling questioned softly as she cut herself off.

"On the ship, Michael's cruiser, Kanaan shot me with a stunner, and Michael was angry with him." She saw the surprise register on Halling's face and told him, "All through these memories, one thing remains a clear constant that I cannot deny. Michael was always very protective of me."

"Of you, or of the baby?" Halling asked bitterly.

_-I will protect you. No matter what, I will protect you both- -protect you both- -protect-_

"Of both of us, Halling. I am sorry, I know that it is probably as hard for you to hear as it is confusing, disturbing for me to realise, but in my own right, Michael has protected me, separate from my baby," she said.

Halling sighed and added even more sullenly, "Then perhaps he was jealous."

"He has no reason to be," she frowned, shifting uncomfortably at the thoughts that came into her mind. "He does not have feelings for m—"

_Her chest tingled beneath the touch of his hand… she felt almost as though she was drowning. His mind began to wrap itself around hers…_

_-what are we to do?- -what are we?- -what?- _

… _his golden eyes bore into her, his mind fully tearing into hers… Suddenly he threw back his head and roared in the most primal way…deeply animal, deeply needful… deeply sexual…_

_"I want you, Teyla," the two tones in his voice mingled to kindle an equality of desire that consumed her; burned within her. "My—"_

The memories came so fast and hard on her that they stole her breath, and she moaned softly, pulling her arm from where it was linked with Halling's to wrap it around her; wrap both of her arms around her. She felt Halling catch her by the upper arms, and turn her to sit on the nearby stump of a tree.

"You should rest, Teyla, this is too much for you, too soon," he said quietly.

"No," she gasped at him, gripping his arms tightly with her fingers. "As hard as this is, as difficult to understand, to accept, these are things I need to know if I am ever to find my son."

Halling sighed once more, "And what if you discover— What if the things you discover are—"

"Whatever I find, Halling," and she could not help but shiver in response to her own feelings, the sensation that flared in her in the wake of the last flash of memory, "I must accept it for what it is and… move on… find Nethaiye and—"

"And what _of_ your son?" he interrupted. "You said that Michael would not let you see him…"

She was weeping when, barely a moment or two after he had taken her son to the chamber at the other side of the room, he returned.

"He is safe, Teyla, and well," he said to her, reaching to almost tenderly brush away a tear with the touch of his hand. She turned her head aside.

"He is _my_ son, _my_ child," she replied as vehemently as she had ever spoken to him, "he needs to be with his mother."

"In time," he said softly, almost sadly, she thought.

Before she had the chance to speak again, a small ripple of tightness passed through her belly and she made a small sound. Her discomfort drew Michael from his thoughts and, business-like, he moved to tend to her, and she was too tired to fight him any more.

His hands were gentle as they moved over her, attending to her needs, making her more comfortable and finally, almost tenderly covering her with a blanket, the softness of which surprised her.

"Rest," he told her quietly, "The birth has been hard on you."

He started to move away, but she reached out and in her tiredness, weakly caught him by the wrist, "Please… my son…?"

"Healthy," he smiled faintly and glanced from her to the opposite side of the room, "and resting as you should be."

"Let me see him," she pleaded.

"I do not think that is wise," he told her, almost with a note of regret in his voice for just a moment, before he continued more firmly, "It is better that you do not."

…_where _is_ he…?_

He stood then and turned from her to cross the room and, from a small chamber there, picked up the wrapped and swaddled baby, before heading for the door.

"Michael," she tried to rise, but was flooded with another wave of tiredness… weakness. "Michael, please…!"

…_where is my son – my child…?…Michael…!_

"…why would he not? Unless there was something he did not wish for you to see," Halling finished.

"I do not know," Teyla whispered almost fearfully. "All that I know is that he said that it was better that I did not. The next day he visited the room in which he left me, courteous, as kind as my temper would allow him to be, but he did not bring my child to me."

"So who cared for him, one of our people, our women?" Halling asked. "Halaya has recently delivered a child, she—"

"He had no wet-nurse, Halling," she shook her head. "Michael took my milk from me and brought it to my son himself."

"I see," he looked at her, glowering in disapproval, and she shrank away from him.

"What would you have had me do?" she snapped, "Allow Nethaiye to starve?"

"If you had held out against him, fo—"

"You think I did not _fight_ him?" She stood up, and paced away, ignoring the spinning of the woodland around them.

She looked up as Michael returned a second time, stood just within the door, his eyes fixed on the empty cylinder that still rested on the workbench in the middle of the room. After a moment his gaze shifted to look at her sadly.

"You disappoint me, Teyla." He tilted his head as she looked at him defiantly. "I would have thought that you, of all people, would understand the importance of your son receiving nourishment from his mother."

"Then _bring_ him to me, and I will gladly give it," she appealed to him. Even as she spoke the words, she knew that he would not. They were too alike. She was the immovable object to his irresistible force.

"I have told you that I do not feel it wise," he said as he came into the room, to pick up the empty container and turn it in his hands. Looking at it in quiet contemplation, but she could see his irritation rising, see the quickening of his breath, and felt the band of tightness inside her mind tightening still further. He raised his voice then, part in anger, but part, she felt, in some kind of anguish. "Why won't you listen to me!"

He slammed the container so hard against the workbench that it shattered, but he paid it no heed as he suddenly crossed the room toward her. She gasped, jumped at the sudden sound of the shattering cylinder, and tried to back away, but he was too fast. Before her aching muscles would allow her to move, he caught her by the shoulders, held her tightly, painfully, and almost shook her.

In frightened desperation she pressed both of her hands against his chest, to keep him away, terrified of what he might do, and cried out, "Michael, you are hurting me!"

"Why must you always fight me, Teyla?" he asked desperately, his eyes boring into her, full of hurt and the fury of feeling it. "I have done everything in my power to ensure that you are safe and comfortable. I have kept and _will_ keep every promise I have ever made to you. Why won't you _see _that?"

"Because my son—"

"Is _safe_!" he cut her off, his voice still appealing to her, full of emotion.

Silence descended, punctuated only by her unsteady breathing, a counterpoint to Michael's own, desperately laboured breath. She looked deep into his eyes, felt the earnest verity of his words, and the stirring of something nearing curiosity beginning within her.

Wordlessly, she freed one trembling hand from where she gripped the front of his coat and reached up to almost hesitantly lay her palm against the side of his cheek. She watched as his muscles tensed, as he forced himself to accept the touch, and then, in an mostly human gesture, he almost leaned into the warmth of her hand.

"Please, Teyla," he barely whispered, and the grip with which he held her loosened just a little. "Do this one small thing I ask of you."

"Small for _you_," she told him softly, "but… for a mother…"

He pulled away from her then, beginning to rise. She almost fell as he let go of her shoulders, and pulled her hand from his coat.

"I will not ask it again, Teyla." he said, once more under control, almost emotionless. "Your son—"

"I will do it," she said, looking away from him.

He sighed softly, and for a moment did not move from the corner of her vision. Then he said, "I will bring another container to you."

She nodded, and doubting it would take him long, began to unlace the front of the birthing robe.

As he reached the door, he turned back to her and called her name. It was a quiet call, but full of depth and meaning that was never spoken.

"Teyla," he said, and paused until she looked up at him. "Thank you."

"He was true to his word," she turned back to face Halling. "He never asked again. I think… perhaps he realised the pain it caused to me. I saw that in him as we argued then."

She stopped speaking as she watched Halling shaking his head. "You cannot attribute him with feelings, Teyla. You cannot judge him by your own emotions. He is a creature, a _thing_. Incapable—"

"I have to believe that, somewhere, there is some good in him, Halling," she took a step forwards, her arms open in appeal to her friend.

"Then you are a fool, Teyla," Halling said, beginning to turn away.

"No," she said softly, "because if I do not believe it is possible, then I must also believe that my son is already dead."

**

"You know he's using you?" Vega jumped, and opened her eyes again as the voice sounded unexpectedly from one of the alcoves. She looked over to see one of the hybrids looking in her direction, and she couldn't help but pull up the blanket over herself more fully. "Taking what he can from you to satisfy his own scientific curiosity."

Vega didn't answer, just stared at the hybrid. She couldn't help but feel antagonism and hatred toward him, though she understood, from what she'd been told, that he was probably as much one of Michael's victims, and now a victim of the Wraith, as was she. She should feel an affinity to him, but she just couldn't bring herself to feel it.

"You know I'm telling the truth," he spoke again when she did not answer.

"Right now, so long as him 'using me' doesn't get me killed, hurt m—"

The hybrid laughed, cutting off her words, "Doesn't hurt you? Doesn't get you kil—"

"Whose _master_ was it that _put_ me here!" she snapped at him in anger. "Yours. While you are all running around playing… lapdogs to that murdering son-of-a-bitch, some of us were trying to—"

"To what? Make the galaxy a better place?" the hybrid asked, his voice laced with sarcasm. "Spare me!"

"Is that you talking, or _him_?" she countered, equally as sarcastic, "because from what I saw he keeps his curs on a pretty tight leash." she tapped the front of her forehead and added, "If you know what I mean."

"Interesting that you think all of us serve him with little choice or free will," the hybrid was not ruffled.

"I can't think of anyone insane enough to join him by choice," she spat.

"Then you know very little about the galaxy in which you've come to be, Captain Vega," he said. "There are many who believe that the galaxy under his regime would be a much better place."

"Just as there are many in the Pegasus Galaxy that serve Wraith," Todd said as he returned, carrying a tray on which stood a steaming bowl. He set the bowl down on the workbench and gave the hybrid a fierce look, one that went some way to frightening even Vega. "You will watch your tongue or I will see to it that you are unable to use it."

"Afraid of the truth?" the hybrid refused to be cowed, even by the Wraith Scientist.

"What truth could you possibly know that would be a threat to me?" Todd purred, and dismissing the hybrid completely, picked up the tray and carried it over to Vega.

"Not chicken, I'm afraid," he said quietly, "but the other humans aboard the Hive have made this vegetable broth with supplies from our stores. I'm assured it's quite nutritious." He set it down where Vega could reach it, and returned to the workbench, and she couldn't help but watch him for a while as he worked. After a few moments, he asked, "Is something wrong?"

"What? I— no. No, thank you, everything is fine." She reached for the soup, the smell of it causing her belly to rumble, and picked up the bowl to sip at the thick liquid inside. It was good, and hot, and as wholesome as Todd had promised. After a moment though, she realised that he was watching her, and stopped… lowered the bowl.

"What?" she asked and tried very hard not to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand.

"I disagree," he said and turned to face her fully. "Something that has been said has bothered you so much that you are 'hiding' in the broth I brought you."

"I'm not _hiding_," she snapped, "I'm _hungry_, I told you. Whatever you put in that… concoction of yours, it's given me the appetite of an elephant."

"Your body has been working hard to heal itself," he said, "Of course you're hungry." He turned back to his microscope then, but not before adding, "But you're also lying to me."

"Why?" she asked him, after only another moment.

"Why are you lying?" he said, without looking up. "How can I know?"

"No… why? That's my problem. Why are you doing all this?" she asked.

"All… this?" He turned his head to look at her, "You would have preferred me to allow you to die. As I recall, you were entreating me not to do so."

"Yeah, but… and don't take this the wrong way, 'cause I'm grateful and all, but…" she sighed and eventually asked, "What do _you_ get out of healing me? Grace from the Uber-Bitch for not letting her personal slave kick it?"

Todd couldn't help chuckling. "Perhaps," he said softly.

"So you _do_ get _something_ out of healing me," she said, "you're not just doing it out of the goodness of your heart."

"Just as you have decided that you are safer at my side," he accused softly. Then looking toward the hybrid, asked, "Is that what he was doing?"

"What?" Vega asked, picking up her soup bowl again.

"Trying to sour your… opinion of me by telling you that I was merely… using you?" Todd said.

"Well, aren't you?" she asked.

"Aren't _you_?" The words were mildly spoken and without any real accusation in them. "Perhaps he will be singing on the other side of his face when he learns what has happened?"

After she drained the bowl, Vega looked over at him and frowned. "Something happened?"

"We have been tracking an individual, someone with whom the Queen very much wishes to speak. When we found this individual I went down to the surface of the planet and, surprisingly enough, bumped into Colonel Sheppard at one of the facilities I visited."

"Wait a minute, you saw the colonel?" Vega asked, and her frown deepened. "You told him I was here, right?"

"I did not." Todd answered.

"You—" she all but dropped the bowl and stared at him incredulously, "What! You didn't tell him, an—"

"If I had told Colonel Sheppard of your whereabouts, Alicia, he would have mounted a ridiculous and suicidal rescue attempt which would have served neither your purpose, nor my own." He frowned at her, "Do you not have faith in my ability to keep you safe?"

Caught by her own words, Vega closed her mouth on the protest she had been about to make. Todd was right. Sheppard, with his motto of, "_No one is left behind_." would do just as Todd said he would, and against this Hive… she shook her head.

"All right," she said, "So what happened after you finished with Sheppard?"

Todd chuckled again, and said quietly, "I had my Darts take me to an alternate facility I knew of on the planet. I found him there," he glanced at the hybrid, "and brought him here… for the Queen."

Vega blinked, and looked between the impassive face of the hybrid, and the raised eyebrow on the face of the Wraith.

"Michael?"

"Indeed," Todd said. "From what I hear, he managed to survive the first of what I imagine will be many… attempts at persuading him to acknowledge the error of his ways."

"Michael… is here?" Vega asked again.

"Do not let it bother you, my dear," Todd said softly. "I do not imagine he will be going anywhere at all that the Queen does not wish for him to go."

Vega couldn't help but shiver at the tone in Todd's voice.

**

The guards forced Michael to his knees in the centre of the chamber, swirling alternating red and deep purple, and from that he knew that someone had pleased her, though was not foolish enough to allow himself to think that would help to ensure his safety.

The pain of his injuries from the fight with the scientist had receded to a numb ache, the bleeding long since stopped. Still his belly churned with the nausea of the entire situation.

"How the mighty are fallen," the Queen purred in mockingly seductive tones as she finally descended the steps to the floor of the chamber.

"Har—"

The crushing press of her mind halted the words he would have spat sarcastically in answer.

_=I did not give you leave to speak= =no leave to speak= =do not speak=_

"Hardly… fallen." He forced the words to come none-the-less.

She chuckled, reaching out with her hand as she began to circle him. He tensed, knowing the touch of that hand and the blades at the tips, but she had angled her hand in such a way that they merely scraped against him. Even so his skin crawled at her touch, and as she came to a halt in front of him, he drew himself away.

She laughed fully then, and turned away, lifting her hands to indicate the chamber around them.

"How does it feel," she asked, "to, at last, be home? Returned to the bosom of—"

"Spare me!" he snapped in defiance. Interrupting a Queen, under any circumstances, was a grievous transgression, but to do so while her prisoner would normally mean death. Therefore, even with the certainty of his belief that, if she wanted him dead, he would already be so, as the chamber flooded with the redness of her fury, and she spun, snarling in his direction, he flinched.

She stormed toward him, arm outstretched, and for the briefest of moments he expected to feel the excruciating finality of her feeding and he fought to keep his mind blank – to reveal nothing. Though her razor tipped fingers struck the centre of his chest, the only pain that followed was the stabbing of the blades that cut deep, before the force of her strike sent him across the chamber to fall, crumpled against the wall.

"You always were too arrogant; too insolent for your own good," she said, her voice the triple tone of a Queen in full power.

He struggled to right himself, expecting more from her, but even as he did her fickle temper waned. The reds in the swirling lights changed subtly in ways he thought he had forgotten…

_He strode down the long and darkened hallway toward the doorway ahead, passed the guards with covered faces and entered the chamber. The only light was a swirling mass of colour from above… pulsing to a heartbeat… a burning… a hunger._

_He felt weakness within strength, a dizzying need that was almost overwhelming, but denied it… and felt the pain of that denial._

_-my Queen-_

_She flew at him, backhanded him so hard he thought his neck would break._

_=why?=_

_"I don't understand," he said, and she struck him again._

_"No," she said angrily, "I am the one who does not understand."_

_"My Queen—" She drew back her hand to strike him a third time, but he stepped forward, caught her wrist and pulling her closer, fighting to match her in strength, pinned her arm behind her back. She snarled in his face as he continued. "If I have in any way offended you, at least explain."_

_She did not. Instead she attempted a crushing mental blow, attempting to paralyse him with the assault. She twisted her wrist free of his grasp, and rolling her weight to her back foot, lashed out with her now freed hand to send him flying across the chamber._

_He landed heavily, the wind knocked out of him, and vaguely registered the sounds of her chamber doors sliding closed, before he realised, too late, that she had followed him across the room. He tried to roll aside, but she straddled him, pinning him to the chamber floor. Her left hand caged his right beside his head, her right pressed dangerously against his chest._

_"I gave you everything you could have needed," she snarled, "everything you desired and this is how you repay me?"_

_"What I have done," he replied, gasping, anticipating the pain to come and finding himself aroused by it as she began to flex the hand that rested on his chest, "I did for the good of our peop—"_

_"__**Our**__ people?" she questioned, and the agony of fire stole his breath as she flattened her hand and began to feed._

_For barely a heartbeat he was still, until an angry defiance flooded him. He would not allow her to end his life. He had committed no crime and his experiments, his work with the humans __**had**__ been for the good of his people, a necessary evolution._

_He twisted suddenly, putting all of his strength into the strike he made against her feeding hand and rolled, fighting her resistance until she was the one pinned beneath him, and his own hand pressed threateningly against her chest._

_"You would not dare!" she growled, raising her head toward his._

_=you would not dare= =not dare= =dare=_

_But the chamber colours swirled in maddening invitation, the press of her mind in his caused the strength of his anger to mingle with his desire… and he dared._

"No!" he roared and, spurred on pure adrenaline and hate he flipped to his feet and lashed out, catching her unexpectedly across the cheek and sending her reeling away. He held no illusion that he would stand the chance to better her for long. "I will not allow you to subdue me."

She struck at him and caught him, painfully, across the side of his neck. In the renewed sting of pain, and the sudden fear that her blades may have cut deeper than they had, his concentration against her mental intrusion broke.

_=kneel= =kneel= =kneel=_

She reached into the air between the two of them, as if pulling him toward her. He staggered, fighting each step, resisting the compulsion to fall to his knees.

"Come," she mocked.

_=kneel before me=_

"You were always so willing, my—"

"No," he gasped through gritted teeth, even as his unwilling knees bent beneath him. "I am not your _anything_. Not any more."

"Ah, once, my—"

"Never!" he cried, as if the admission were a painful one. "I was _never_ your consort."

"Then wh—"

"A tool," he anticipated her question and spat the accusation like a dirty word. "A tool for you to use and then throw away – nothing more."

"And you were _my_ tool to use," she growled at him, "it is why you were chosen and yet _you_ chose to _debase _yourself with that—"

"You _sent_ her to me. You expected it – you _always_ expect it; are secretly _excited_ by the second hand feelings you—"

"Do not—" she began to warn him, but he was beyond the point at which he could easily draw a rein on his temper.

"—siphon from your _chosen_, your Commanders. You think I did not feel the stink of your mind when—?"

He cried out with the sheer agony of the feeling as her fingers, blades leading, punctured the side of his chest, and the tearing a moment later when the guards she had silently summoned dragged him away from her.

"Take this _offal_ out of my sight," she hissed. "Teach him to _watch_ his tongue."

**

Keller sighed and leaned against the bench. She was exhausted. Pressuring herself to find a solution, a way to return Lorne to them, she had worked, almost non-stop to modify the retrovirus that Doctor Beckett had used to change the Wraith that Michael had been. To no avail… even with the cells stabilised, thanks to Michael's serum, the retrovirus had done nothing but cause severe trauma to the major, and almost sent him into complete systemic shock.

The sounds of his screams as the retrovirus had run its course had haunted her sleep, and prompted her return to the isolation room, where she now sat, watching him, trying to decide what to do.

She rose quietly from her chair and crossed to the centre of the isolation room where Lorne, restrained as per Woolsey's orders, lay immobile on the bed. The once smooth skin of his face and forehead was now lined with the veins and mottled look of Michael's hybrids, and on either side of his nose were the deep grooves of the Wraith physiology.

"What is it that you're looking for, Doctor Keller?" She jumped and almost took down the IV stand as Lorne spoke. "You already know that your retrovirus won't work any longer."

"Evan," she said, trying to mask her fear, her heart pounding so hard that she was sure he would see it. "How are you feeling?"

He opened his eyes then, and she found herself shuddering as she looked into their pale, washed out irises, the hints of yellow gold in them, and their shape, pale imitations of Wraith eyes.

"I feel stronger," he said after a moment or two, and tilted his head against the pillow to the side to regard her coolly. The arm furthest from her strained against the restraints, as though he was testing them.

"Major, you've got to stop doing that," she told him, "It's only a matter of time before someone is going to start asking questions, notice you're not sick, and then what? You think they'll keep you here? If you're lucky they'll toss you in the brig, I—"

"You shouldn't worry about me, Doctor Keller. I know my place," he said, and then turned his head to look in the direction of the marines guarding the door. "I know those men will shoot me if I try anything, and they should. I _should_ be in the brig." He looked at her then, and in a sing-song voice added, "I'm a danger to Atlantis."

"No," she protested, "No, you're not. Michael did this to you, that's all, and I'm going to find a way to _un_do it."

He locked his eyes with her and stared at her for a very long time. She started to feel more than a little uncomfortable, a little afraid, as the truth sank in, slowly but surely. This was not the mild mannered, loyal soldier that Evan Lorne had once been. He was transformed… and now he was, almost completely, Michael's creature.

"What makes you think," he said slowly, confirming her chilling thought with his words, "that I want that?"

**

In spite of himself, Michael struggled against the restraints that cut deep into his wrists. The Wraith Commander approached him slowly, holding the glowing rod carefully in his left hand. His head tipped to one side, almost in amusement as instinct made Michael pull away from the extended instrument of his torture.

The Commander let out a hissing breath, merciless, relentless in his approach, and grabbed a handful of Michael's hair, pulling back his head, as he finally pressed the device against the nerve cluster at the side of Michael's neck.

Dreadful pain flooded through each nerve and muscle, spreading from that point of contact to subsume him; possess him in its cruel raking; stifle him.

A bubbling, agonized cry began in the back of his throat… his jaw tightened. His teeth ached where he ground them tightly together to stop the scream before it could escape. He would not give him; give _her _the satisfaction of hearing it. He lost awareness of all else… only the burning – worse than any hunger – remained.

**

Teyla had barely made it back to the hut in which she had been performing the ritual with Halling before exhaustion overtook her. Hungry, but too tired to eat, she lay down and, in the warmth of the fire in the hearth, she soon drifted into sleep… into dream…

_She woke suddenly, whether from the absence of the presence she had begun to realise as the touch of Michael's mind, or from the increased presence of the Wraith around her, she could not tell. Where before her hands had been bound, now they were free and, beside her, the remains of the equipment that Michael had brought from the Alpha Site._

_Even though she did not expect to find anything of use in the utility vest, she checked anyway, and then quickly straightened up to look around. She could not see Michael, but her panic increased as, looking over the ridge, she set eyes on the Hive ship, and the cruiser flying overhead._

_"This… is what I was drawn to." As Michael's voice sounded, Wraithlike, behind her, she spun around to face him. His transformation was not entirely completed, but she could already see in him the traces of the Wraith that he had once been. A small thrill went through her, though she was unsure if it was fear, or something else._

_"They are aware of us," she said, and he slowly turned his head to face her. "They are coming."_

_"I know," he said, pausing to tilt his head, and meet her eyes with his own, "and I will return to them."_

_-come with me-_

_The invitation was hesitant… tentative as though he was fighting to remember something, as though he did not understand the reason for his asking. She tilted her head, as he had his, a trembling beginning inside her that she fought to ignore._

_"Then we shall be enemies again," her voice fell as she spoke the last word. Was it disappointment?_

_His sigh was barely perceptible, and without taking his eyes off her, he slowly began to walk around her. She turned to keep him in view._

_"We never stopped being enemies," he said, and she thought she heard the same disappointed tone in him as well._

_"What will you do with me? Feed on me?" she demanded, fighting harder to keep the trembling inside of her from showing, from affecting any part of her that he would see. "Is that why you brought me all this way?"_

_He looked away, refusing to meet her gaze, and fighting to keep his breathing under control._

_"I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel the urge," he said, and then he finally brought his eyes to meet with hers again. She could not help but look at his right hand, fear… and something more, mounting inside of her. After only a moment, he followed the direction of her gaze, looking down at his hand as he began to raise it… clawed. "And now that I'm truly able to feed again," he said, examining his hand. Then he turned it towards her and she could clearly see the feeding slit. She remembered the sting of it, painful and yet… "I feel it even more."_

_Giving way to the excited fear bubbling inside of her, remembering the sensations, not so very long before… when he had held her, pinned to the wall of his research facility, inviting an alternative to death… she turned to face him fully. Her breathing began to tremble in and out of her chest; her body trembled with the fearful anticipation._

_"Then go ahead," she told him; dared him._

_For a moment his face creased into an expression of reluctant pain, and he let out a sigh that hissed around them, a chill wind warning of the troubles to come, and resisting with each inch toward her that his hand moved, he reached for her. She held her ground, trembling and all but panting in front of him…_

_Then he stopped, and in surprise she looked up into his eyes…_

_-come with me, Teyla-_

She woke with a start. She had denied him and his disappointed anger, the betrayal in that had flooded him, and taken whatever moment that had almost existed between them.

She sat up, and pressed a hand to her chest, where she could almost feel his touch, whispering his name.

**

His ankles dragged along the cold hard floor of the Hive ship as they half carried him along the corridor toward the cell. He barely registered anything of the journey, though in the back of what remained of his conscious mind, he was aware that he knew the route well.

Every part of him trembled, his muscles still cramping, and he no longer cared that his faceless guards, nor their sub-commander, their handler – he knew – heard the small sounds he made. His one satisfaction, his one salvation, was that the Commander had not, and so neither had the Queen. He refused to give her that. She _would not _break him.

He barely heard the spiralling hiss of the bars opening to admit them. They let go of him and having little control over his body, and no strength in his muscles even if he had, he fell heavily to the floor. He fought to curl around himself, protective, possessing enough presence of mind to know what was coming… to at least try to protect those parts of him still vulnerable to blunt trauma. He was too slow.

The sub-commander kicked him, hard, in the soft parts of his belly… he retched, but without the strength to do little more than make the whisper of a sound.

"Don't get too comfortable," the Wraith hissed harshly against the spiralling sibilant crackle of the tendrils reforming to close the bars of his cell.

Trembling, every muscle tense and in spasm, he finally managed to curl around himself, reached inside of himself, seeking comfort, but refused to allow himself the one solace he craved.

_He had felt her even before he opened his eyes. He felt the concern streaming from her; felt her doubts, began to reach for the edges of those feelings. Perhaps she would understand, perhaps she did care._

_"It is all right," she said softly, getting off the stool and coming toward him. "You are safe."_

_"What happened?"_

_"You were sedated for transport to the Alpha Site," she said, her voice almost sorrowful, apologetic… yes… perhaps she did care._

On a swollen hand he pushed himself upright, dragged himself to lean into the wall of the cell, in the corner, for support. As he forced each muscle to work, his trembling breath brought weakening cries from deep in his belly, until he couldn't move any more and breathless, he whispered a soft, desperate appeal.

"Teyla…"

**

The early morning sun should have been refreshing, but with so many thoughts and questions crowding in on Teyla, even the cheery brightness of the day did little to lift her spirits, nor did the prospect of her expected visit from Colonel Sheppard.

Teyla sat, leaning against the outside wall of the small hut. Her eyes were closed as she tried to empty her mind, to find peace from the troubling thoughts of Michael and the growing realisation of the way she felt. She could not trust herself; could not trust that her feelings were her own, but she also found it hard to deny, as she had told Halling, that from what she now remembered, Michael _had_ been very protective. Admittedly it had been in his own way but…

She sighed. There she was making excuses for him again.

"Teyla," Sheppard's voice broke in on her thoughts. She looked up at him and noted the worried look on his face. He came closer, adding, "Wow, you look…"

As his voice trailed off, she tried to smile. "It is all right, John. I know that I look unwell."

"Well," he said, obviously trying to play down the way she was sure she looked to him. "Now you mention it, you do look a little pale."

"I feel it," she confessed.

"Look, if you're not feeling up to this," he said, "I can come ba—"

"No, John, please, I would like to take a walk with you," she said.

Sheppard nodded and held out his hand to help her up. She took it, steadying herself for a moment against the lasting dizziness the drug in her system caused, and then with a thoughtful, serious expression, began to lead the way.

**

It wasn't far to the lakeside, and for almost every step of the way Sheppard looked at Teyla, trying to read her face, to get some clues as to what might be going through her head. When Halling had contacted him, he'd said something about some crazy talk over Michael protecting her or something. He shook his head.

"What is it?" Teyla asked.

"Hmm?" He was startled away from his darkening thoughts.

"You have been looking at me all this way," she pointed at the lake, almost right in front of them, "and now you shake your head."

"Oh, I…" he started, caught, "I was just thinking."

"That much, I knew," she said. "I have also been thinking."

"Oh?" he asked as mildly as he could.

"Was there never _any_ thought, _any_ consideration given to his feelings?" she began, stopping to gaze out over the water.

"Look, Teyla, I…" he trailed off, not wanting to betray Halling's confidence.

"I know you have spoken with Halling," Teyla said, "and that more than likely he has asked you to come here to persuade me that I am not in my right mind if I think anything other than harshly on Michael and all that he has done."

Sheppard sighed. He'd meant to try and tread carefully, subtly with her on the subject, but she confronted him so bluntly, it was difficult to do other than respond in kind.

"Let's just think about that for a moment," he said, trying not to snap. "Think about all he's done."

She turned to face him, and he thought he saw a hint of her rising temper in her eyes, but mostly her whole demeanour made him think of a lost child, begging the adults around her to bring her home. It encouraged him.

"First of all, he killed Cole. Then he kidnapped you, killing two S.O.'s in the process—"

"Then he was rejected by his own people, assisted us to subject them to a biological agent, rendering them harmless to us, and then appealed to us for help, whereon we subjected _him_, against his will, to further use of the retrovirus, and ultimately tried to kill him," she interrupted, speaking in clipped tones.

"You want to talk biological warfare?" he snapped, his voice rising in irritation. "Hundreds of thousands of people in this galaxy are dead or dying because of Michael's use of the Hoffan drug as a weapon against the Wraith. Hundreds more are enslaved against their will – including Lorne – because of his use of a modified version of the retrovir—"

"Behaviour which he learned from us," she snapped.

"Your people, your _own_ people, Teyla! Your lov—"

"Wraith cannot be alone," she said. "It is an anathema to them."

"He's not a Wrai—"

"Because of what _we_ did to hi—"

"Teyla," he finally called her name in exasperation, "stop! Would you _listen _to yourself?"

"I am just trying to understand, John," she said. "You and Elizabeth created this plan together. Did either of you ever consider the ethics of such a thing, or look ahead to see the possible consequences of such an action?"

"We did what we had to do in order to survive the Wraith," he said, as if he was spelling it out to a child.

For a long time, Teyla did not speak, simply looked him in the eyes until he began to shift his weight, uncomfortably, between one foot and the other. When she spoke, it was quietly, calmly, as if in sorrowful memory, "Then we are _not_ that different. We kill to protect ourselves and our own. So does Michael. On his ship he told me that it was circumstances that necessitated the scale on which he does so, but that the principle of it is… still the same. Is he wrong?"

He squirmed uncomfortably under the weight of her gaze, and the words she spoke, before he said equally as softly, "This is _war_, Teyla. Things like this happen in war."

"And yet, your behaviour says to me that it is acceptable when it is done by the soldiers of Stargate Command, but not when Michael, or the Wraith—"

"What he did – what he still_ does_—"

"He had no other way to fight. He was alone, vulnerable, betrayed by all sides. On Atlantis, he asked me for my help, begged me to kill him if I would not give him the help he needed."

"And maybe it'd have been better if you had," John said, turning away a little bit. He'd seen the tapes, heard the conversation, and seen the way she—

"John—" she said softly.

"No!" he exclaimed. Taking a breath to calm himself, then turned to her and took her by the shoulders. "Teyla, he messed with your head. I wish you could hear yourself; hear the way you sound."

"And I wish that you could understand how it is for me," she answered, "to know that. To have back these memories that I had lost, only to find that what I believed to be the truth, seems as far removed from it as—"

"How can you know that?" he asked, "How can you trust what you're remembering now. What if—"

"I know what you are going to say, John," she interrupted again, "but somewhere, some time, I have to begin to accept what is mine as my own. No matter how difficult it might be to come to terms with."

"Halling was right to send for me," he muttered petulantly.

"Why?" she asked, "Because my view of everything in this galaxy no longer fits with the way _you_ believe it should?"

"Bottom line, Teyla," he said, running a hand through his hair and pacing away several steps and reluctantly continuing, "Michael's campaign against both the Wraith, and the humans of the galaxy has been devastating for everyone. He's killed, and maimed, above and beyond what's acceptable in warfare. That in itself is an act of evil. He took your son, for what – some kind of genetic experiment? Come on, Teyla, your _son_."

"You do not have to remind me," she snapped, her voice rumbling between them.

She was clearly agitated, clearly in conflict with herself, and as much as it twisted his heart for her troubles, it warmed Sheppard somewhat, and was a relief to him that she was.

He reached out with his hand and laid it gently onto the top of her shoulder, and when she looked up at him, he said, "Then, enough with this crazy talk, hmm?"

"Answer me something, then, John," she said softly. "Back in the beginning, before we gave him the retrovirus for the second time, what in him was such a threat that even _after_ he saved your life aboard the Hive, and the lives of Ronon and Doctor McKay; after he offered up the solution of sending over the aerosolised gas to the Hive; piloted that Hive safely back to Atlantis and offered no resistance at all – why, still, could we not have accepted him, helped him?"

_How does it feel, Colonel Sheppard, to know that it's me she calls for in the dead of night; me she reaches for when she's in need, and this time—_

For a long moment, Michael's words echoing, pounding in his head, Sheppard couldn't answer. Had he known, even then? Had he felt that threat?

When she did not take her eyes off him, he said, "Would _you_ trust someone who could do something like that? Turn against his own people that way?"

She sighed and turned away, speaking softly, but not so softly that he could not hear her words.

"They stopped being his people when we took him from them the first time."

**

"Anyone know what this is about?" Ronon asked, sliding into the seat next to Sheppard and then looking around at the others.

"Probably another stupid procedural rule that Woolsey's trying to introduce," Sheppard said absently.

"What's wrong with _your_ face?" Ronon asked, taking a long look at the depressed expression Sheppard was wearing.

"Ah, I'm just—" Sheppard started to answer but a sudden thought made Ronon interrupt.

"Hey, how did the visit with Teyla go? How is she?" he asked. Sheppard's sigh told him that this was what was worrying his friend. Ronon frowned. "She's okay, right?"

Sheppard sighed again, "She's just—"

"Good morning."

Richard Woolsey swept into the conference room with a tight smile on his face. Beside him, a tall, brooding figure of a man suddenly dominated the room. Far from being dressed in Atlantis uniform, the newcomer's crisp, dark suit was like a lowering sky that threatened a storm.

"Thank you all for coming," Woolsey continued, taking his seat. "I know you're all very busy."

"Yeah," McKay looked up from his computer tablet, "In fact, any idea how long this will take? Only—"

"It will take as long as it takes, Doctor McKay," the storm cloud said. His voice sounded like twigs passing over uneven ground, an almost smooth rolling of gravel.

Ronon's hackles instantly rose and a deep frown found its way onto his face.

"And you are?" McKay also frowned, looking up at the newcomer.

"My name is Reuben Varnerin," the man said.

"Professor Varnerin has just been assigned to Atlantis to replace Doctor Williamson," Woolsey cut in.

"A psychologist?" McKay asked. The contempt was more than clear in his tone.

"My primary field is psychiatry, as a matter of fact, Doctor," Varnerin answered, "though I do also hold several degrees in psychology, yes."

He finally took a seat at the table and spread out his files and papers in front of him.

"The point is, McKa—" Woolsey began, but again, it seemed that Varnerin preferred to speak for himself.

"If I might, Richard?" he said. Without waiting for Woolsey's assent the professor continued, "Stargate Command and the IOA felt that, in light of the recent troubles, recent developments and the pressures those issues have caused, Atlantis personnel would benefit from the kind of expertise I can provide."

"Williamson was more than capable," Sheppard grumbled, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "The men liked him. He saw to our debriefing needs just fine."

"Doctor Williamson is, I'm sure, a perfectly competent psychologist," Varnerin agreed, and Ronon's own suspicions began to deepen. He never liked a 'yes' man. They always had their own agenda, and it was never usually one that supported the good of the team.

"Then—?" Sheppard asked.

"He does not have the necessary experience, nor the skill set needed to effectively deal with these events," Varnerin said.

"In your opinion," Sheppard countered.

"But also in the eyes of the SGC and IOA," Varnerin said.

"Look," Ronon growled, growing tired of all the nicely-nicely verbal tangos. "We're fine. We've been _fine_. We don't _need_ anyone messing with our heads."

"Mr…Dex, isn't it?" Varnerin shuffled one file from the stack beside him to the top of the pile and placed another in front of him.

"Ronon," he grumbled.

"Ronon, then," Varnerin smiled, but his blue eyes remained as icy as before. "Let me ask you: has anyone spoken to you concerning everything that has happened with the loss of your friend, Teyla, isn't it?" Varnerin looked around at all of them. "Have any of you?"

"First of all," Sheppard started to answer, "Teyla's not lost, she—"

"Please, Colonel Sheppard, I was speaking with Ronon," Varnerin said.

"Well, she's not," Ronon grumbled. "We found her and she's just fine."

"I beg to differ, Mr Dex." Varnerin sat back and looked at him for a moment before flipping open the file in front of him and reading, "Dissociative Amnesia, severe post traumatic stress," he looked up again. "Did _she_ have the opportunity to receive appropriate counselling? Did any of you?" Ronon opened his mouth to tell the man, once again, that he was – they were fine, but Varnerin went on, "I'd like to begin with you, Ronon. While Doctor Zelenka finishes integrating my equipment into the rest of the systems, I'd like to use this office, if I may, Richard."

"Of course," Woolsey said.

"Good," Varnerin smiled. "Then if the rest of you will excuse us..."

**

"What the hell is this!" Sheppard demanded, grabbing Woolsey's arm and pulling him to a halt just outside the control room.

Woolsey looked down at where Sheppard held his arm.

"I thought Professor Varnerin made it perfectly clear what this is, Colonel Sheppard," Woolsey answered. "The IOA has reiterated the requirement that all Atlantis personnel undergo a psychological evaluation, and we're beginning with the Alpha team."

"This is bullshit, is what it is," Sheppard said. "What the hell does anyone fresh from Earth know or understand about life in the Pegasus Galaxy? You ought to appreciate that more than anyone!"

"What's your objection, Sheppard?" Woolsey snapped, "the man or the method?"

"That it's happening at all," Sheppard growled and took a step closer to Woolsey. "Don't think you can use this to undermine the members of my team."

"Are you threatening me?" Woolsey took a step back until he was right against the rail.

"When I threaten you," Sheppard said, almost trembling in anger at the latest strategy the IOA thrust against them. How could they be expected to function effectively with so much interference from bureaucrats with no clue as to the pressures faced by the members of the Atlantis Expedition? "When I threaten you, you'll know."

**

Ronon sat in his seat not saying a word and glared at Varnerin. He had nothing to say to the man and didn't want anyone trying to influence his mind or second guess what he was thinking.

For a very long time, Varnerin sat, saying nothing, just watching him, maintaining eye contact. Ronon all but snarled.

"You're like an animal, Mr Dex, aren't you?" Varnerin finally spoke. The question, more an observation, was softly spoken. "A wolf… wounded, teeth bared against those you feel come in threat."

"What makes you think I feel you're a threat?" Ronon asked, tightening his jaw. He already disliked the man and being called an animal by him did nothing to change that first impression.

"I'm an unknown quantity; something outside of your experience. Of course I'm a threat." Varnerin answered.

"Don't flatter yourself. I've known plenty of men like you," he said.

"Like me?"

"You come in here with your fancy theories, your better-than-thou attitudes and think you know me, what I've been through?" He snarled again. "You don't know anything."

"I know you're angry," Varnerin said, "hurt."

"A murdering psychopath kidnapped someone who's like a sister to me; still has her son and murdered the father of her child. What do you expect?"

"I expect you to be angry and hurt," Varnerin said with a half shrug. "Interesting diagnosis, by the way."

"Diagnosis?" Ronon frowned as he asked.

"Psychopathy. I presume you're referring to the individual you have called Michael. From what I've read, I personally would say more of a sociopath than a true psychopath, but it's only recently that the two haven't been used interchangeably, so—"

"Are we done?" Ronon started to get up. "I figure since you've obviously stopped trying to shrink my head and have moved on to talking about that _psychopath_ that we are, because I have work to do. In case you didn't know, we're trying to _find _where he's keeping Teyla's son; trying to cure Lorne, and Beckett… and every minute I sit here wasting my time with you, is another that I'm not doing that."

"Please sit down, Mr Dex," Varnerin said calmly. "I'd actually like to talk to you about Sergeant Wallace, the marine you attacked on M7X-884."

"The marine that attacked Teyla," Ronon said.

"Wallace was following the orders of a superior officer," Varnerin offered.

"We are _so_ done," Ronon rumbled. Then he turned and stormed out of the room, ignoring Varnerin's quiet instructions to return and sit down, and entertaining the idea of heading for sick bay to go and set that 'superior officer's' record straight regarding Teyla as well.

**

He was confident that this time there would be no mutations. Based on all his research, and all the computer models he could run, Todd was confident that, this time, he would succeed and then would be in a position to offer the Queen the serum for which she had asked.

As he loaded the syringe, he glanced across at the woman, sleeping once more in his cot. Her blood had been clear of the floating debris from the Hoffan drug that had been there before. He had, at least, been successful in as far as curing her abreaction to the drug in her system. The next step, of necessity, would be to discover if his use of it had changed the effects that would occur should any Wraith attempt to feed on her. He doubted there would, but scientific enquiry demanded that he come to know. After that… well, as he had realised earlier, he now had a live test subject with whom he could work to—

He stopped and sighed. Wondering to himself just how much he should involve her; how much he should let her know what was happening, and what he intended. Of course, once she returned to the service of the Queen, access to Vega would be more difficult, more… troublesome than it was currently, and sooner or later she would have to return.

As he set down the vial containing his modified serum, he sighed a third time. Therein, of course, lay another problem, one that he had repeatedly avoided discussing with Vega. The Queen had sent the woman to him for a reason, a purpose, and would likely expect to see evidence of that purpose on her return. For the barest of moments, he considered the notion, his brow crinkling in a curious frown.

He let out a slight growling sound of indecision - time enough later to consider all of the ramifications of such an eventuality. He had work that needed attending to, otherwise nothing of any other consequence would matter.

Activating the command to tighten the restraints on the second of his three remaining hybrid subjects, he approached the alcove. He could feel the eyes of the first of the hybrids watch him, following him across the room and almost hoped the creature would say something. He felt the silence in the laboratory as a weight on him. The hybrid did not speak and neither did the one restrained to the wall, on whom he would conduct his experiment. He found it curious. It was almost as though they had some kind of hierarchy among them. He wondered if they had somehow set it themselves, or if they had been given some kind of ranking system by the Abomination. Todd glanced at the first alcove, and met the eyes of the leading hybrid as he administered the injection to the second of them and then backed away, touching the controls to activate the barrier, and loosen the restraints once more.

It was only a few seconds before the serum began to have an effect. The hybrid, once silent, almost sullen before him, began to moan. It was soft at first, but then with growing intensity as the effects of the changes began to take place. The flesh began almost to bubble as the hybrid DNA was rearranged by the retrovirus contained in the serum, designed to strengthen, to reactivate the Wraith element of the chromosomes and stimulate their growth until they would subsume, entirely, the human cells on which they were annealed.

"So far so good," he rumbled softly to himself.

"Todd?" Vega's voice, behind him, startled him. He turned and caught her by the shoulders before she could come too close.

"I apologise," he said quietly, "I should not have allowed this to waken you."

"It's all right," she said, trying to look past him into the alcove. "What…?"

"My work for the Queen," he told her. "Nothing with which you need concern yourself. You should go back to bed. Try to sle—"

"Oh my God!" she gasped, and he frowned to see she had indeed succeeded in looking past him.

He turned quickly to see what had horrified her so. She stayed close behind him, and he could feel her hand trembling against his back. As soon as he saw into the alcove, he knew at once what had frightened her.

The hybrid, now at least more Wraithlike in appearance, had begun to melt. The skin of its face, bubbled and waxy in appearance, had begun to slide and drip from the bone, as if the protein bonds had begun to come apart. In its agony it raked at the barrier, as though trying to get to Todd.

"Go back to bed," he said to Vega.

"No, I—"

"Alicia, do as I tell you!" He raised his voice to her, and heard a slight whimper as he felt her obey.

Quickly returning to his workbench, he reactivated the restraints, and then entered the alcove to retrieve a sample of the hybrid's disintegrating flesh. He had to know, to understand, what was happening if he were to correct the problem.

"What happened?" Vega asked him tremulously from where she now sat, knees raised and clasped in her arms, with her head buried against the tops of her knees. He glanced at her as he returned with the sample to his microscope, and felt a pang of worry for her discomfort.

He pushed the feeling aside and said, "I will not know until I can analyse the sample, but I suspect that the primary bonds between the proteins in the cells are dissolving under the action of the reagents in the serum."

"Right," she said, and he could tell by her tone that she did not understand, even before she added, "And that means?"

"That means," he said, irritated with himself, "that I have made another miscalculation in my theory."


	2. Act 2

**Act 2**

Vega almost felt human again, after she had bathed, though Todd's silence was bothering her. She was sure that it had something to do with the failure of his latest experiment. She'd come to know that he was incredibly touchy about such things. It could only mean trouble.

Still towelling her hair dry, she came up behind him. He was staring at the screen of his computer, of which, of course, she could make no sense, since it was written entirely in Wraith characters, and boldly lay her hand onto his shoulder.

"I'm sure you'll get there," she offered softly.

He let out a voiced sigh, and turned away from the computer, reaching to take her by the shoulders.

"Alicia," he rumbled softly, "there is something about which you and I must speak."

She couldn't help but swallow hard. Something about the tone in his voice told her that this was likely to be a conversation she might wish she had been able to avoid. Still she asked, "What is it?"

He shook his head, "Make yourself comfortable," he said, "There is fresh clothing on the cot. I will leave you to change, and when I return, we will speak."

Without another word he stood up from the stool on which he was perched, and left the laboratory. She stood, blinking as if stupefied, looking toward the door. Her paralysis was only broken by somewhat sarcastic laughter from the hybrid.

"Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it," she snapped, and with a slightly nauseous feeling in her belly she turned to go and investigate the clothing that Todd had said was on the cot for her. She expected more of the same that she had been treated to before, the scant fabric that fit where it touched, and left very little to the imagination. When she unfolded the dress, her breath caught in surprise.

"Seems like someone's been a good little girl, and has gotten her just rewards," the hybrid said.

"I said I didn't want—"

"—to hear it, yes, I know," he said. "But have you considered what you have to… or were supposed to have done, in order to receive your prize?"

Vega ignored him; tried to anyway, as she held the soft fabric up to her. Granted the bodice would be tight, and would probably only cover the bare minimum, leaving her shoulders and arms bare. The skirt, though shorter at the front than the back, was full and looked as though it would hang in overlapping layers, exposing her legs if she moved, but keeping her covered when she was still. The whole thing was a deep, almost black velveteen fabric.

"Oh boy," she sighed, talking to herself as the hybrid's words finally sank through the joy of having something that would, at least in some small way, not leave her so exposed.

"You think you have the presence of mind to… _lie_ to a Queen?" the hybrid stressed.

**

Coming awake with a short cry, from a sleep that brought no rest, and trembling, where he was still a knotted ball in the corner of his cell, Michael was certain that someone had called for him.

When he tried to move, everything hurt. Squeezing his eyes closed tightly against the pain of it, he tried to unravel his arms and legs, and finally, in the frustration of it, he brought his head back, hard, against the bulkhead behind him.

He began to question if he had the strength for this; to rue his stupidity – arrogance, perhaps, and to look for a way out of the cell. He knew the Hive. If he could just find a way to be free of the cell.

Michael tried to stand, but the pain of it proved too much for him and he once more slid down the wall, this time almost snarling in anger at the Queen, the scientist, the Lanteans – even at himself.

Without the energy to maintain it, his anger faded rapidly, and a small chuckle escaped his throat at the irony of being here, locked in a prison, technically, of his own making.

_The movement from the doorway of his laboratory made him look up from the cultures he was manipulating. The girl stood hesitantly part way in, and part way out._

_"Well?" he demanded, not without a touch of impatience at being disturbed by the Queen's handmaiden. "What does she need?"_

_"No," she answered, her voice barely a light, almost melodic whisper across the distance between them, lightly tremulous. "That is not why I am here."_

_He growled softly, replaced the cultures swiftly into their stasis units and crossed the room to take her by the arm and draw her away from the door so that he could have it closed._

_"Out with it, girl," he rumbled, "what do you want?"_

_"Milla," she shrank away a little as if she knew she spoke out of turn, when he frowned at her in query, she told him again, softly, "My name. It is Milla."_

_"And?" he tried not to allow himself to become more impatient with the girl._

_"Our Queen has sent me to… you to…" She looked away from him, across the laboratory to where his private quarters were to be found._

_"I am working," he said, letting go of her arm._

_"She said you work too hard." She snatched a quick, trembling breath, "that I am to… encourage you to rest."_

_He could not help but chuckle, and tilted his head to look at her properly. She was petite, with the slender kind of build that the Queen preferred in her servants, though was not unshapely. Her long hair was clasped behind her head in a twisted knot. In spite of himself, he could not help but reach out and free the clasp… allow the silken fall to run through his fingers._

_"Rest?" he questioned the use of the word. She blinked at him, and a welling of something a little more than scientific curiosity gathered inside of him. He nodded to her._

_"Very well," he said, "Go through. I will join you in a moment."_

**

She took a deep breath as she heard his footsteps returning along the corridor and then the tread of his boot inside the laboratory.

"I-think-I-know-what-you're-going-to-say-and-it's—"

"Do not speak another word until you hear what I have to say," Todd cut her off, coming to where she was standing beside the cot.

"No, seriously, I—" she looked up at him, gesturing with one of her hands between them.

No sooner had she done so, than Todd's hand closed around her wrist. He spun her around, making a grab for her other hand in the process, and holding them both behind her back, in his left hand, he pushed her forward, pinning her against the wall, and slammed his right hand against it, right beside her head.

"I said 'do not speak,' woman," he all but roared. "When will you learn your place?"

His actions and the tone in his voice startled her – terrified her, and she struggled against him almost frantically.

"Let me go," she squeaked, "you're hurting me."

He stepped closer, using his body weight to hold her in place. "I have not even begun to—"

"I trust you—" a new voice registered relief in Vega's thundering heart, and more so when the pressure from where Todd gripped her lessened.

"How _dare_ you interrupt me!" he said furiously as he turned away from her a little. Her knees suddenly lacked the strength to support her and she all but toppled to the ground. "You can see I'm busy! Get out!"

"Forgive me," the sub-commander's voice was contrite, and moments later the door closed.

"I apol—" Todd started to say, but a slow applause began from the alcove.

"Oh, masterful… that'll be _sure_ and throw her off the trail," the hybrid said.

Vega looked up, still breathing hard, still trembling, but looking between the hybrid in the alcove, and Todd, who stood glowering at him. Before the hybrid could speak another word, Todd crossed the room, and activated the door to solidify, effectively sealing off the hybrid.

Then he turned back to Vega, and she shrank away when he took a step toward her. He stopped moving and held out a hand in her direction, she was sure it was meant to be placatory.

"My apologies," he said softly, "The Hive Sub-Commander followed me, our little… tryst had, of necessity, to be convincing."

"You could have warned—"

"No, I could not," he began to walk toward her again, offering his hand to her, to help her to rise, and this time she took it, allowed him to steady her as she got to her feet. "I just said—"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I heard you. Convincing… right?" She swallowed. "What… did you want to talk about?"

Todd sighed.

"We have avoided this topic of conversation for a long time, Alicia, but now time is upon us as the Queen expects you to be returned to her by morning," he said.

"Yes, I… I got that much, and…" she trailed off as he gestured toward the side of the cot.

"Sit. We can at least be comfortable as we speak," he said.

She did sit, and a moment later so, too, did he. "Yeah, but can we, though?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" he tilted his head in query.

"I know what you're going to say, Todd. The Queen… sent me to you, so that we, well… you know." she blushed and couldn't bring herself to say it.

"So that we would have the opportunity to engage in sexual activities… Yes."

She swallowed. He was so matter of fact about something so… intimate to her, that she couldn't help colouring from the tips of her ears to the soles of her feet. "Such a romantic," she joked, trying to cover her embarrassment.

"Romance is a human notion, Alicia Vega," he said softly, "The truth of the matter is that the Queen has sent you to me as a test of our loyalty to her. Should we have… engaged in such activities and then turned from our affections toward her—"

"—Then we fail the test." she guessed.

"Then _I_ fail the test," he corrected her softly. "Humans have been known to develop affections for their Wraith masters – so it is not entirely unexpected by the Queen, and as long as it only enhances your loyalty to her…"

"Then she doesn't give a shit," Vega sighed. "And if we don't?"

"If we do not… what?" he asked.

"If we don't… do this thing, then you fail the test again, rejecting her gift and probably so do I for not being… interesting enough of something," she said.

Todd chuckled. "Now you see the predicament."

"What are you laughing at?" she snapped, "this isn't funny."

"You are not uninteresting, Alicia," he answered.

"Oh, spare me the Wraith chat up lines," she said fearfully. "You're the genius, what's the solution to this?"

"It would seem to me that the solution is obvious," he said quietly, "though I will not make that decision for you. Some Wraith… would. I will not. It must be your choice and I expect you to be honest with me."

She looked away, and after a moment couldn't help but chuckle, as the thoughts, the swirling thoughts and feelings knotted in confusion inside of her - fear, and curiosity, and the undeniable need for comfort all at war with the absurdity of the situation.

"Honesty…? To a Wraith?" she asked, still laughing as she looked back at him.

His face crinkled into a frown, and his eyes narrowed a little in a semblance of upset. "You wound me."

"Todd, I'm sorry, I just…" she trailed off, looking away again. She stared into the middle distance of the laboratory, as if she would find the answers there; would suddenly work out what to tell him and how. After she had not answered him for what seemed many long minutes, he reached for her, took her chin carefully in his fingers and brought her gaze back to his face. She swallowed, "I'm scared, Todd."

"You believe that I would hurt you," he said.

"I don't know what to believe, what to think, I—" she sighed. "I will confess to being curious. Wondering what it's like for the Wraith, but—"

"Mere curiosity, or…?"

"The Queen is so openly sexual, she… seems driven by it, she—"

"It is her way, the way she chooses to manage her Hive," he answered, "but you are changing the subject, and we have little time left to decide."

"And what if I can't?" she asked him, covering the back of his hand where he still held her chin with her own cold fingers. "What if I can't make that decision?"

"Then we have only one option available to us," he said, "Because otherwise… the Queen _will_ kill you."

She swallowed hard. "What's that?"

"Turn around," he instructed, and when she hesitated, he added, "trust me."

**

The memories continued to surface in Michael's mind as he tried to move past them, find his way past them, to connect with the Hive itself; to find some way to free himself from the predicament.

_He had been more tired than he thought, the warmth of the scented flame, and the oils that the girl – Milla – had massaged into his tense muscles had relaxed him toward sleep, and he was content for it to be that way… for the time being at least. He'd seen other commanders, fresh from just such rewards as His Queen had sent him, almost high on the life force they had consumed, and if he were honest, that would be a waste with such a one as skilled in the arts of bringing comforts as this girl. He could see why the Queen valued her so, and had for so long kept her to herself._

_He was uncertain what noise it was that woke him, but he opened his eyes to find the girl at the door to his chambers, attempting to trigger the lock with a narrow bodkin she carried._

_Silently he rose, approached her and, without warning, slammed his feeding hand against the wall of his chamber. She turned and lashed out with the knife, but he was ready for that, and caught her wrist and brought it to slam against the doorframe. Her hand opened. The knife clattered to the floor, and he kicked it away, before pressing closer, pinning her to the door._

_"Let me go," she struggled against him, and he realised that this was a strategy she had used many times before. Seek escape before the commander wakes and wishes to take his fill, in every way. It was what had kept her alive for so long amongst the Wraith. A part of him admired that._

_"Where would you go, Handmaiden?" he asked her, "and what would you do if they found you and brought you to the Queen, unmarked by your little bodkin. They will catch you, one day. Trust me, Milla, outside of these walls, if you are lucky, you are just another human to be fed upon."_

_She shuddered and he let her go, though he did not yet move away, reaching instead to lift away a strand of her hair from her face. She flinched as he touched her._

**

Vega flinched as Todd's hands settled on her shoulders, and he swept her loose hair aside. Behind her he leaned closer, and she jumped again as she felt his breath against the side of her cheek.

"I thought I said to trust me," he said very softly.

"Yes, but," she whimpered a little as his right hand moved across the top of her chest, the warmed metal scraping slightly against her skin. "Why like this?"

"Wraith males will always first approach a female in this way," he said softly, "If we are to create the proper illusion for the Queen…"

"Mn… Todd, look," she shook with each breath as he tilted her head to the side, exposing her neck to him, "Why don't we j—"

"Because you… are not certain, Alicia," he said and his lips brushed her neck as he spoke.

**

"_Am I so very terrible to you?" he asked Milla, his voice the softest it had ever been, and on the end of the question he stepped back, away from her, and spread his arms to both sides of him as if inviting her to survey him. He turned slowly around, his posture the same, and then stood facing her with his arms still spread wide._

_He watched her eyes move slowly over his broad shoulders, across the Wraith characters that seemed almost to frame his collar bones and descend over his chest to disappear beneath his waistband. He watched her breathing quicken, and reached out with his mind to encourage her, even as he said softly, "Come…I will not hurt you."_

_She swallowed hard and slowly walked across the room to him. He picked up her hand, toyed with her fingers before he set her hand onto the characters that even now her eyes moved over. She pressed her trembling, cold hands against his chest and he covered them briefly with one of his own before he raised her chin on the side of his index finger, and having seen it in her mind, leaned down to take a kiss from her lips._

_She gasped and shook harder against him as he deepened the kiss, capturing her lips with his and pressing the caress of his tongue against hers. Slowly at first, teasing with what he had seen – and in no small measure curious himself – he allowed the kiss to progress until she seemed to lose herself in it. At her response, passion overtook his restraint and he wrapped her more tightly in his arms, deepening the kiss still further._

_He felt her panic and she began to push against him, struggling with him to be free of his arms, of the kiss; felt her need to breathe._

_He let go of her and she stumbled backward as the kiss broke, snatching breaths from the air. He reached to steady her, cupped her cheek in his hand and caressed her face gently with a movement of his thumb. He tipped his head to the side in query._

_"This isn't right and she'll know. You know she'll know." she gasped. "Why are you doing this?"_

_"I am a scientist, Milla. I seek to understand your people," he said._

_"No," she said, shaking her head and moving back to him, taking his hand and drawing him to the bed with her. "Do what you must but do not give the Queen reason to doubt us."_

_He sighed. "As you wish," he said quietly and, reaching for her suddenly, turned her in his arms, and drew her closer. His head descended to the nerve cluster at the side of her neck, almost nuzzling to move her head aside, before his lips closed over her skin._

_She cried out as his teeth followed, "Wait… please," she gripped his arm where it was wrapped around her, suddenly, breathless. "What is your na— How do I call you?"_

_"You do not. There is nothing you __**can**__ call me. You lack the capacity."_

Michael sighed. Afterwards it had been swift and almost brutal, but even so she had given to him everything he had asked of her, in word or thought. Her every action had been to please him, even to the last, as he had turned them again, pinned her beneath him and with a roar at the fulfilment of his own pleasure, thrust his feeding hand on her and taken deep. But something…

_She looked up at him, as her breath began to fail, tears gathered in her once brown eyes. Her mouth was moving, as though she was trying to speak. He reached into her dying mind to take the words from her directly._

_One day… perhaps… you will understand._

_Something like pain twisted deep inside of him at the words, and before he knew what he was doing; before he gave a thought to the consequences, he shifted his hand slightly, and began to give her back all that he had taken._

"One day… Milla, yes. One day…" he whispered into the darkness of the cell, knowing then that she would not release him from his cell.

**

"So, the girl finally succumbed to your Wraith charms," the hybrid said as Todd returned the door to its opened state.

"If you do not watch your tongue, I will close it again," Todd warned him. He ignored any further comment the hybrid might have been about to make, feeling satisfaction at the fact that in a few short moments, this particularly smug individual would have that smugness wiped from his face when he saw the state of his master.

As if the thought reminded him of the arrangements he had made, he went to the workbench and began to load the latest set of results into the computer, and the slides into the microscope. He did not necessarily believe that the Abomination would help him willingly, but thought perhaps, by now, he would have softened enough to be willing to accept a bribe.

While he waited for the guards to bring the renegade scientist to the laboratory, he took some time to consider what he already knew from the analysis of his last failure.

As before, the retrovirus in his serum had reactivated the cellular development of the Wraith cells which had used the proteins and amino acid strings to replicate their entire helixes onto the human DNA strands. However, like the last time, once that process had completed, instead of stabilising as they should – as was the desired result at least – the newly created cellular enzymes had begun to completely destroy the chromosomal bonds on a molecular level. The result had been nothing but a pool of almost primordial hybrid soup.

He sighed, running the possible adjustments he could make through his head until he heard a scuffle by the door. He looked up in time to see two of the drones supporting the Abomination between them. Mentally he waved them away and watched as the Abomination swayed unsteadily.

In spite of the antagonism he felt toward his former rival, he couldn't help but feel a certain degree of empathy, remembering his time as a captive of the Genii.

"Sit," he said, "if it is easier."

The abomination made no move to sit. Nor did he even seem to register that he was being spoken to. He just stood, staring ahead not quite blankly. His expression was sullen.

"Come now," Todd said lightly, almost congenially. "We can… be of assistance to each other. I cannot imagine that you have been treated to many comforts."

Still the Abomination did not speak. This time, however, he began to move his eyes around the room. Todd did not pressure him – gave him the time to take it in. Finally, he felt the Abomination's eyes on him.

"Am I to be your prisoner now?" he said.

The tangential leap took Todd by surprise. He blinked and, looking at the Abomination, frowned deeply.

"No," he said, "though, if you cooperate I am certain that I could use my influence to secure certain… comforts for you."

"Cooperate?" the Abomination said. "With you?"

"Of course," Todd answered, gesturing toward the microscope. "While you and I have always been… rivals, and you are a prisoner on this Hive, that does not change the fact that yours is one of the most gifted scientific minds I have ever encountered."

The Abomination looked Todd straight in the eyes. Todd thought he saw an incredible weariness in the dull pain burning there.

"You need my help," he said.

"I wouldn't exactly say… needed," Todd said, denying the truthful assertion. "I'm more than a little aware that you have a certain expertise in my current line of enquiry and I thought—"

"You need my help," the Abomination repeated, dispassionately.

"It really would be in your best interests," Todd said darkly, and once more gestured to the microscope.

Moving painfully slowly, the Abomination approached the workbench. Todd looked him over as he did. Aside from the injuries that he, himself, had given to the other – and he recognised them very well – he saw the raw redness on the side of his neck, no doubt from the energy rod Wraith used from time to time on their most belligerent of prisoners and runners. As the Abomination raised his hands, to rest his fingertips against the workbench, Todd saw the cuts and abrasions the restraints had caused around both wrists.

He was pulled from his evaluation of the Abomination's condition by the realisation that he was staring at him, waiting.

"Be my guest," Todd said.

Sighing, the Abomination leaned down to look into the eyepieces. The change in attitude must have unbalanced him because he staggered slightly and Todd reached out, reflexively, to capture his elbow and steady him before he could bring the equipment down on top of them both.

The Abomination turned his head and glared at him until he released his hold, and then leaned down once more to examine the loaded slide.

**

Michael felt almost comfortable as he operated the equipment to slowly focus, and then magnify the sample. Almost. He let out a long, slow breath as the image slowly resolved itself into something painfully familiar.

He saw the frayed edges of the primary bond between the chromosomes and the evidence that the Wraith template had failed to anneal to what remained of the T7 chromosomal key. He could give the scientist a solution for that particular part of the problem, but it wouldn't change the fact that the Wraith template itself was clearly not strong enough to support the mutation.

His belly knotted with something approaching fear. If the scientist had already used the Queen's genetic material…

"What Wraith?" The words burst from his lips before he could prevent them.

"I…" The question obviously caught the scientist off guard. "One of the sub-commanders."

"I presume you examined the pure DNA for—"

"—flaws, of course, yes." the scientist snapped, frowning deeply.

Michael let out a long, slow sigh. While relief flooded through him at the news that it had been a mere sub-commander's DNA that had been used as the template in which to carry the retrovirus, he could not believe that the scientist could be so _stupid._ It was almost as if he did not want the experiment to succeed.

"What's your point?" the scientist asked. He sounded confused, only underlining Michael's opinion of his ability and intentions.

"I have no point," he said coldly, "I merely questioned your method."

**

Todd growled at what he knew was a deliberate jibe at his ability. He almost backhanded the already injured creature, raised his hand to do so and then stopped. He noticed the Abomination was staring in the direction of the alcoves that held his two remaining hybrid soldiers. Did he feel sorrow for their plight?

Slowly he lowered his hand, and following the direction of his gaze, said, "It was obviously not a problem you encountered."

The Abomination slowly turned his head, looking with contempt in his eyes toward Todd. He did not, however, comment on what the Wraith had said.

Todd paced away in irritation. The Abomination was playing with him.

"If you have no intention of answering my questions, I will have you returned to your cell and leave you to the mercy of your jailers," he snapped.

The Abomination barely flinched.

"How do I prevent the cellular degradation," Todd demanded angrily. "How can I force the Wraith and Human DNA to anneal? What am I _missing_?"

"When the solution evades you, return to the basic functions of the problem and solve each issue one at a time," the Abomination lectured quietly.

Finally pushed beyond the limits of his patience, Todd lashed out, sending the Abomination half way across the laboratory to land in a crumpled heap beside the furthest alcove. Only a moment later, two drones appeared in the doorway.

"Take him back to his cell," Todd snapped, and without hesitation they picked up the stunned prisoner and began to drag him away.

**

"This is the third settlement we've had ask us for help in as many days," Sheppard said as he walked with Ronon into the conference room. "Woolsey has to listen this time."

"I wouldn't be too sure on that," Keller said as she swept past the two of them to take her place.

"What do you mean?" Sheppard asked, frowning.

"He's pulled my medical teams off three of the worlds hardest hit by the modified Hoffan plague."

"No, no, no," Sheppard said, "this can't be happening."

"You better believe it is, Sheppard, because—"

"I'll sort this," Sheppard said, holding up a pointed finger toward Keller. Then he turned, heading for the door and almost walked into the brooding mountain that was Professor Varnerin.

"What is _he_ doing here?" Ronon rumbled deep in his chest.

"I've asked the professor to join us so that he'll be fully briefed on the current affairs, and the issues likely to be faced by base personnel." Woolsey said, sweeping into the room.

"Shall we, gentlemen?" Varnerin smiled cheerlessly and took his place beside Keller.

"Colonel Sheppard?" Woolsey invited Sheppard to start by briefing everyone on the current intelligence they had received as they and the other teams travelled off world.

"No," Sheppard said, "first of all, I'm telling you you're making a huge mistake pulling in those medical teams. Our doctors are all that stand between those people and an excruciatingly painful death."

"I'm sorry, but, in light of the current and expected escalating conflicts with the Wraith, the IOA has initiating a new policy: immediate recall of all base medical personnel. From now on, Doctor Keller and her people will be focussing entirely on the health concerns of this city. We need to prioritise." Woolsey said.

Sheppard shuddered, the conversation all too familiar. He couldn't help but glance at Rodney, see him much older, reciting words very similar to those Woolsey now spoke.

"I don't understand this," Keller said angrily.

"Face it, Doctor, you've overextended yourself with all these humanitarian efforts and your continued attempts to find an antidote for the Hoffan drug, not to mention trying to find a way to reverse Major Lorne's hybridisation when you've already told us that it was not possible," Woolsey said, "You need to refocus your attention back to the medical needs of this base and its personnel."

"Lorne is 'its personnel,'" Sheppard growled.

"Not any more," Woolsey said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sheppard narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"That means, Colonel, that in Professor Varnerin's opinion, Major Lorne's mental state is a major security risk to this base, and as such I have no choice but to have him confined." Woolsey said.

"We really have no choice otherwise, sadly," Varnerin added.

"No, you can't do that, I won't let you," Keller snapped. "The man needs medical attention and—"

"The man is a Human-Wraith hybrid under the control of a very dangerous sociopath," Varnerin corrected her. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but there's no other choice."

"There's _every_ other choice," Keller told him, standing up in anger, and Sheppard couldn't help but admire her for speaking out. "If we get out there, find this bastard and make him tell us how to undo this; send our doctors and our nurses out there to see to the care of the people he's hurting – people are _dying_ out there!"

"I know," Woolsey said, "and, believe me, if I thought there was anything we could do about it, I would authorise it, but no. For the time being, my decision stands. Please sit down, Doctor Keller."

"What about Michael?" Ronon growled.

"What about him?" Woolsey asked. "From all the reports you've given lately, it seems as if we've succeeded in weakening him to the point where he's been forced to pull out of many of his locations; go to ground. Perhaps we've even seen the last of him."

"That's a dangerous assumption to make," Sheppard said. "Start thinking like that and it's just the time he's going to walk right up to our doorstep and bite us on the ass."

"Michael knows the defensive capability of this base and our ships, we think it's highly unlikely, especially in his current, weakened state—"

"—there you go making assumptions again," Sheppard said.

"—that he will launch an unprovoked attack. If he _is_ still out there, he's far too busy defending against the Wraith," Woolsey finished.

"Which brings me to my point that the Elder Hive is gaining greater dominance among the Wraith," Sheppard said.

"Wait a minute," McKay interrupted, looking at Sheppard with a frown on his face. "Elder Hive? There you go with that naming thing again."

"Well, it made sense to distinguish it from the others, I—"

"Gentlemen," Woolsey cut in. "Dominance?"

"Several teams returning from off world have reported that, in certain areas, the Wraith have resumed culling," Ronon reported, "Previously they were being kept busy either by Michael's army—"

"Or by the new civil war among the Wraith," Sheppard finished.

"But," McKay cut in, getting up from his seat to activate the schematic. "Our long range sensors are showing that, from time to time a small cluster, maybe two or three Hive ships, come together and one of those ships is always the 'Mother-of-all-Hive-ships."

Rodney gave Sheppard a sour look.

"We can only speculate," Sheppard said, ignoring McKay, "that whoever is on that Hive is forming some kind of… network and—"

"But you said, 'dominance,'" Varnerin observed.

"Let me spell it out for you, Prof," Sheppard said. "Imagine a regular Hive like… a little tiny sailing boat. Now think of the Elder Hive as… say, an aircraft carrier, or a destroyer." He drew a small circle and a huge circle onto the scratchpad in front of his place. "Faced with size and, no doubt, firepower, you're going to tell me it's not a case of the smaller being dominated by the larger?"

"Your point is well taken, Colonel." Varnerin said.

"In light of which," Woolsey interjected, "The directive from the IOA, to see first to the safety of this base, makes even greater sense."

"So that's it, then?" Ronon growled, "We're supposed to just stand back and let whoever it is commanding that Hive just take over the rest of the galaxy?"

"For the time being, until we receive any compelling evidence to suggest we should do otherwise," Woolsey said, "that's exactly what we're going to do."

"What about Todd?" McKay put in, frowning.

"Todd?" Varnerin asked, confused.

"One of the Wraith," Woolsey explained. "Colonel Sheppard and his team have had… dealings with him from time to time."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Varnerin said, looking directly at Sheppard.

Sheppard shrugged, uncomfortable under the gaze. "Not really," he said, "so long as you remember that you can't really trust him as far as you could throw him – no."

"So, what's different about this particular Wraith?" Varnerin asked.

Sheppard waved his hand dismissively. "We don't have time for a history lesson, Prof, sorry. Key point right now is: he gave us some data."

"Medical data, right?" McKay asked, looking at Keller.

"Maybe," she said. "I'm still trying to identify the amino acid chain so that we can understand what he's telling us."

"Make that your priority, Doctor," Woolsey ordered.

"But Lorne—"

"Is beyond your help," Woolsey asserted. "Meanwhile, Colonel Sheppard, I'd like you and your team to start on those some of those reports I'm missing."

"Reports?" Sheppard said incredulously. "I can't believe you're confining us to base when there are so many worlds out there crying out for our help."

"And those reports may well pinpoint exactly where our help and resources would be better off targeted," Woolsey said. "No one is confining you anywhere."

"Fine then," Sheppard said. "Our _military_ involvement, in my opinion, is better targeted on providing support for Doctor Keller's research into curing Lorne and helping Beckett." He glared at Woolsey, almost wishing he would argue. When he didn't, Sheppard concluded, "We need to find Michael."

**

Vega winced slightly as the Queen carefully ran the pads of her fingers over her wrist, visibly bruised as it was from the tightness of Todd's grasp against her as he had pinned her against the laboratory wall. She tried to be still as the Queen circled her, sometimes touching, but mostly only running her eyes over the marks and bruises that she and Todd had so painstakingly created.

She shivered. It had been so clinical, so calculated a deception. Yet now she began to doubt her own ability to maintain the lie. She knew that if she couldn't, if the Queen discovered the obfuscation, then she would be dead before she could blink, and so, probably, would Todd.

As the Queen continued to circle her, leaning in closer to breathe in deeply, smelling the air around her, almost animalistic in her manner of welcome at Vega's return, Vega began to wonder if it would have been safer, would have been so terrible a thing to acquiesce to her curiosity; to submit herself to Todd.

Vega trembled as the Queen laid her cool hand against the burning mark on the sensitive side of her neck.

_Todd's hands settled on her shoulders. He swept her loose hair aside and leaned closer, breathing against her cheek._

_"I thought I said to trust me," he said very softly, scraping the fingers of his right hand across the exposed part of her chest. It was almost painful, the metal tip sharp, scratching a line across her tender flesh… almost painful, yet at the same time…_

_His breath was like the touch of fingers over each sensitive nerve as he spoke, as he tilted her head to the side, to expose her neck to him and she shook with each breath. Closer his breath came to her until at last his lips brushed against her neck as he spoke, the shock of the touch wiping away all other thought but the surreal fear that suddenly took hold of her in the moment before his teeth closed over her skin, just hard enough, she knew, to mark her with his bite._

At the memory of it she felt her nerves sensitise, a warmth buzzing low in her belly, her breath caught and she almost moaned as the Queen pushed at the memory… as strong as it was, and as troubling… As the Queen's mind left hers, Vega gasped. She felt tears rising – frightened by the Queen's interest and by her own reaction to the thought.

"His scent is all over you," the Queen hissed.

"I… tried only to please _you._" Vega stammered, her fear real even if the words were a lie.

The Queen stroked her hair.

_=we shall see= =shall see= =see= _

"Go to your rest," the Queen instructed as the drones arrived, bringing Michael, limping, between them.

**

"I trust your mood is much improved," the Queen purred as she turned to face the Abomination. She ran her eyes over him, looking for the evidence of her Commander's hand against him. She chuckled at the sullen expression and walked to him where he stood, immobile, in the centre of her chamber. "Perhaps not," she continued and ran her hand over his shoulders as she moved behind him. He still did not move. "You look tired," she purred seductively, "You should rest."

_=rest= =rest= =rest=_

Slowly, still behind him, she trailed her left hand from his shoulder, down over his chest. A slow, needful hiss bubbled inside her at the lingering taste of the girl's desire, still fresh in her mind. The hiss became a growl as the Abomination caught her wrist and pulled her hand away from him.

"You rejected me. Sent me away," he snarled, his jaw tight.

She lashed out against his restraining grasp with the blades of her right hand and with a small cry he let go.

**

"I sent you to do my work," she spat, turning him forcefully to face her.

The weight of the remembered pain; of a Wraith rejected by his Queen, drew anguish of an intense and almost human nature from deep inside of him; conflicted with the anger of her ingratitude for everything he had done for her, given to her, every service.

"You sent me to a lesser Queen, on a failing Hive – to nothing!" his tone almost appealed for contradiction.

"It was only ever meant to be a temporary measure," she said and took a step forward. He backed up.

"No," he gasped, his voice rising and falling on the word.

"Yes, my consort," she purred and took another step toward him.

"Stop _calling_ me that!" Anger flared inside of him, deep and scalding, like the touch of the energy rod against his neck. She had sent him away and the inferior Queen into whose service he was pressed, by time and circumstance, had undervalued him, used him – all but murdered him, and now _this_? He gritted his teeth as he cried, "I won't let you _use_ me any more!"

"What I did was for the good of the Wraith. You were to bring them to me – unite us," she growled at him. "The failure was yours, not mine."

"You're insane!" he hissed, blinded by rage.

_"You kill to protect yourself and your own. So do I. Of course, circumstances require me to do it on a slightly larger scale, but the principle is still the same."_

_"You're insane."_

"You sent me as a lamb to slaughter, knowing that the Queens would not come to heel; to keep yourself safe from the war with the Ancients!"

"You are beside yourself," she said.

_=come to me= =come to me= =come=_

"Allow me to show you the—"

She reached for him and pure, wild reflex made him block her incoming hand. He pushed it aside before he lashed out in turn, landing a surprisingly hard punch against her face. With surprise on his side, fuelled by the last vestiges of the strength of his anger, he sent her reeling backwards to fall to the chamber floor.

Even as she landed, the vice of her mind gripped him, stealing control, holding him immobile again as she found her feet and flew at him. She landed three crushing blows against his face and chest before the drones reached her side and she stepped away.

"It seems he needs another lesson. Teach him to keep his hands off his Queen."

**

As he approached the room where the Commander worked to carry out the Queen's orders, Todd could tell that the Abomination had tried to stifle the scream, but still the sound of it cut through him, chilling Todd's every sensibility.

He paused in the doorway, taking in the scene. The Abomination was suspended by one arm from a chain that linked through the bulkhead. His shirt had been torn from his body, exposing him to their torture. His feet barely touched the floor, hyper extending his shoulder. One hand, his right, was free of the restraint, but held in the grip of the Hive Commander's hands. The Abomination struggled, but stood little chance against the strength of the healthy Wraith.

**

Fighting for breath, fighting the Wraith, Michael barely noticed the scientist standing in the doorway. Nausea swirled in his belly. It weakened his legs still more, increasing the ache in his left shoulder as it had to take his weight. Still he would not submit; admit his grave error at striking the Queen.

Agony blossomed, sharp and deep, as the Commander finally twisted one of the fingers of his right hand. The sound of cracking bone was drowned by the scream he failed to hold inside. The whiteness of the pain stole his vision as the Commander ground the broken bones together, and at the same time, a sub-commander gleefully pressed an energy rod against the extended side of his body.

"Wait." the word was a balm that took away the intensity of the pain, allowed the whiteness to recede to a dull ache. He took a shuddering, gasping breath and opened his eyes.

The scientist walked toward him slowly, looking up and down his body, his eyes lingering on the mess of injuries that Michael knew he had, though he could not bring himself to see. Defiantly Michael met his eyes. Did he think that just because they had him, chained and vulnerable – tortured – that he would cooperate; answer his questions?

"The Hoffan protein anneals to the rhesus factor carried in human blood chemistry. Tell me how it can be forced to disintegrate, anneal to another carrier that can be flushed from the human system?"

So, the scientist was seeking to cure the humans, allowing the Wraith to feed again. He could not help the slightly insane mirth from rising in him; bubbling out of him. The scientist frowned, transmitting anger with every part of him.

"How can we use this knowledge to create a vaccine to prevent the proteins from attacking Wraith physiology?" the scientist raised his voice against the rasping, humourless laughter coming from Michael's throat. "Answer me!"

As abruptly as the laughter began, it stopped cold, and that cold became anger that raced through his veins, banished the fear that only moments ago had threatened to overwhelm him.

As if they were the only two in the room, Michael looked him straight in the eye as fierce and icy as he had ever been and said softly, but with a deadly edge, "The humans… have a phrase. I'm certain you are familiar with it." He gave the barest of pauses, before he quoted, "_Go to hell._"

The Wraith scientist narrowed his eyes, pure trembling rage burning visibly in their slitted yellow orbs. "Finish it," he ordered the Commander, turning on his heel and storming away.

The burning pain against his side, the white agony that burst in on every nerve, and the acute and indescribable grinding that reached into the depths of his gut as one by one, the Hive Commander broke and twisted his fingers, stole every ounce of control he possessed. He could not but cry out. There was no help for it – and in the midst of it, as he began to slide toward the mercy of unconsciousness, he fought, and failed to keep in place the mental safeguard he had so carefully erected.

**

It had been a restless day. Nothing Teyla could do would settle her and as the day wore on, she grew more and more tired, until finally there was nothing to do but sleep. Her terrible exhaustion drew her quickly into a deep, but fitful sleep, full of whispers and half remembered images until quite some time in the night…

_The darkness in the roundhouse was almost absolute and the cold chilling. She frowned and fumbled at her waist, where a pocket held her fire-maker, and brought light to the desolate place in the form of a single candle that her stumbling search had revealed._

_With the faint light from the candle, shapes and shadows resolved into familiar items and she began to be aware of a sound. It was quiet, like the laboured breathing of some small animal, almost a whine. She picked up the candle and, moving carefully, approached the source of the sound._

_The figure lay in the middle of the floor, close to the bed, as if whoever it was had been trying to reach the comfort of its softness, and lay unmoving on its side, curled into an almost foetal position._

_As she approached, he, for the figure was male, shied away from the light, moving as though the illumination hurt._

_The closer she came, the more her stomach began to know an almost familiar feeling; the greater recognition settled inside of her._

_"You!" she said angrily as she realised the identity of the figure. "Where is my son?" She began to circle him, looking down at Michael, increasingly disquieted by the way he almost flinched from her. "What have you done with him?" she demanded, her anger beginning to fade in the increasing confusion. "Answer me!"_

_Her voice cracked in fear and she leaned down and grabbed him by the shoulder to pull him over onto his back; to see him._

_His moan became a silent cry as she moved him and even in the half-light she could see the cuts and scrapes, the bruises to his face, the blood stains on his shirt._

_"Michael," she gasped and fell to her knees beside him._

_"Teyla," he barely whispered, "please…"_

_He was trembling, though whether from the cold or from his pain she could not be sure. Suddenly trembling herself, she reached out and quickly grabbed a blanket from the bed, still unmade, nearby. She threw it over him and, as gently as she could, drew his head to rest in her lap._

_He gave another small cry at the movement and the twisting in her belly brought tears to her eyes. Almost tenderly she began to run her fingers through his hair – little enough comfort, but it was all she could give._

_"Who has done this?" she asked, her voice shaking._

_Ignoring the question he gasped, "Teyla…" though whether in warning or appeal she could not be sure._

**

As consciousness and pain possessed him again, awareness of his cell floor returning, the air chilled his already trembling body. He cried out for Teyla, a desperate appeal. He knew he was in shock, knew the dangers and tried to force his body to cooperate, to sit up, to find those tattered shreds of strength and wind them around himself again.

He could not allow himself to reach for her again nor to call for her. He could not allow his pain to endanger her and everything he had worked for.

Ignoring the further pain that movement brought him, he forced himself to sit, to lean against the wall, and from the rough, frayed blanket, tore several strips using his teeth and his one good hand. Then stealing himself against renewed nausea and the agony to come, began to straighten and bind the broken fingers of his right hand.

**

Teyla came awake, gasping, the edge of a cry still almost real in her ears. Her heart pounded and tears of uncertainty came to her eyes. She sat up, leaned against the wall behind the low bed and drew the blanket around her suddenly shivering form. What did it mean? What truth was her mind seeking to bring her such a fearful dream?

**

Her new-won freedom was both a blessing and a curse for Vega. She took more than a few wrong turns in the long corridors between the rest chamber assigned to the Queen's handmaidens, and Todd's laboratory.

_A matter of urgency_ he had said in the message. She worried at what it might be. She also worried at seeing him again after the confusing rush of desire that had surfaced in her as she had thought of Todd at her neck when she returned to the Queen.

_"Wraith males will always first approach a female in this way," he said softly, "If we are to create the proper illusion for the Queen…"_

Perhaps it had been the Queen's desires then, that had invaded her mind and body. If what Todd had said was true. As needful as the Queen appeared, she would have, most likely, found Vega's memory very arousing. She sighed – sounded like an excuse. There was a word for situations as this one that she experienced now. If the Queen was not the cause, then it must be that simply because he had kept her safe, so far, she had affixed her feelings onto him.

"Come inside." Todd's voice startled her. "I was beginning to wonder if you had received my message."

"Yeah," she said awkwardly. "Just kept getting lost, is all."

He made a rumbling sound in the back of his throat and she had to look away.

"I suppose a Hive ship could be confusing, yes," he said.

"What's so urgent?" she asked, looking round.

"A warning," he murmured, turning away from the equipment on the workbench to face her.

"About?" she asked.

"Your companion ha—" he stopped abruptly.

"Todd?"

"Wait here," he said urgently as he began to move toward the door. As he passed her he put an almost gentle hand onto her shoulder. "There is something I must attend to, but I will return shortly."

He left before she had a chance to protest that the Queen might call for her.

The worry of it soon faded as she investigated the things she could see on the workbench. The vials contained various coloured fluids. There were cultures growing in dishes and slides that had been prepared for viewing under the microscope.

Standing on tiptoes, she tried to make sense of the sample that was currently on display. She could not understand. It reminded her of dusty doughnuts and, no doctor, she sighed and began to draw away; to look elsewhere.

It was not long before she heard a sound in the doorway.

"About ti—" she began, thinking it was Todd, returned. She stopped as soon as she saw one of the Hive sub-commanders. "I… he…"

The Wraith just stared at her. It was either a hungry or lascivious expression she thought he wore.

With barely another moment's pause, he rushed at her and she began to wonder if the Queen had sent him; wonder what she had discovered.

She backed away as far as she could go, catching the stools and throwing them down between them. Scant protection, as the sub-commander simply bat them aside, as if they were of no consequence. Soon she had nowhere left to go.

Roaring in satisfaction, the Wraith thrust his hand against her chest, slamming her back against the bulkhead wall. The action and the unmistakable bite of his feeding hand drew a scream from her, and she lashed out, trying to defend herself even as she knew it was pointless. He far outmatched her in strength.

The scream was a soprano counterpoint to the second voice, raised in a roar of anger, before the Wraith sub-commander appeared to fly backwards away from her, and there was Todd, standing between her and the Wraith, who even now was struggling to rise.

Trembling she reached for Todd's arm and he drew her in to his side, where she unashamedly nestled against the warm leather of his coat.

"She is under my protection," he growled softly, "by order of the Queen."

**

Keeping Vega close, feeling the way she clung to him, and finding it a curious reaction, he turned his gaze to the sub-commander.

He was struggling to breathe and clearly in pain. Obviously the woman remained a danger to Wraith.

"Help… me…" the sub-commander gasped, reaching out to Todd. At the same time, Todd felt his weakening mind reaching for the collective consciousness in warning. He could not allow that.

Quickly pushing the trembling woman away from his side, he crossed the laboratory in very few strides and came to one knee beside his fellow Wraith.

"You… sa—" the sub-commander began, before, almost mercifully, Todd snapped his neck.

"You… you killed him," Vega stammered and he turned his head to look at her.

"There was nothing I could do for him," he said. "For Wraith, the effects of the Hoffan drug are swift and painful."

"You're saying," Vega said slowly, her voice horrified, "that _I_ did that to him?"

Todd climbed to his feet and came to gently take her hand in his, righting one of the stools and guiding her toward it.

"Do not let it concern you, Alicia," he said gently, and began to reach for one of the vials on the bench and a clean piece of gauze. "He should not have tried to feed on you. I also am at fault. I should not have left you alone. I apologise."

"No, it's all right," she said as she watched him tip some of the liquid from the vial onto the gauze. "I can't expect you to babysit me every second of the day. What was it anyway?"

"It turned out to be nothing," he said, and as carefully as he could, he began to clean the area now bleeding from the touch of the Wraith's hand.

She sucked in a hissing breath. "What _is_ that?"

"It is an astringent," he answered, "very effective as an antiseptic, and for stopping bleeding."

"No shit!" she said, and he raised his eyebrow at her. "You were going to warn me about something?"

He nodded slowly, "I have learned that your companion handmaiden is to be given to the Hive Commander. If she survives, she will have much influence over our followers aboard the Hive. You should be careful."

"If she survives?" she repeated fearfully.

"Yes," he said, finishing with the first aid to her hand-burned chest. "You should go and rest while you are able. Even though he was unable to feed, you have still suffered trauma."

He watched as she left the laboratory and sighed softly. It was a dangerous game he played, all sides against the middle. After a moment he stood and went to take blood and tissue samples from the dead Wraith, before summoning two drones to quietly dispose of the body. Even before they had arrived, he was hard at work on the analysis.

**

Varnerin stood in the shadowed corner of the brig watching the figure standing in the centre of the holding cell. Lorne hadn't moved in as long as he had been there. Varnerin took out his pocket watch to check the interval of time. It had been some twenty minutes.

He raised his eyebrows and took a step forward, a storm cloud moving into the light. It changed nothing. Lorne remained perfectly still, staring straight ahead, breathing calmly. He appeared almost to be sleeping with his eyes open.

"I was alarmed when Richard first told me that you had been… how shall we call it?" Varnerin said at last. "Infected?"

He expected the hybrid Lorne to turn and face him; to at least acknowledge his presence as he spoke. He did nothing.

"Everyone else here thinks that Michael did this to you as a… humanitarian gesture; to save your life."

Still the former major did nothing. Nor did he speak.

"You know that Doctor Keller is vehemently opposed to you being here – in the brig, I mean." Varnerin kept his voice as calm and neutral as he could, giving the creature in front of him nothing to react to except the words.

"You were right to bring me here," Lorne said. His voice held no trace of emotion, one way or another, to being locked in the cell. His words were as dispassionate as his posture. "I represent a serious security risk to Atlantis."

"What makes you think it was on my recommendation?" Varnerin asked.

"What makes _you_ think I did?" Lorne asked, his head tilting just the slightest little bit to the side.

"Jennifer still thinks that she can find a cure for this," Varnerin pressed. Lorne turned first his eyes, unblinking, and then his head to face Varnerin at last. The Storm Crow was momentarily taken aback by the intensity of the threat in that simple movement. "She insists that if we find Michael; find his research even—"

"This state of being is not a disease," Lorne said, and though the voice was calm, there was a hint of something like anger beneath the surface of the words.

"Ah," Varnerin smiled coldly. "At last a sign of life. So, who am I speaking to?"

Lorne turned and took several paces toward the equidistant, horizontal bars that made the cell.

"This isn't possession," he said, "it doesn't work like that."

Varnerin turned his head back over his shoulder to the marine standing guard by the door, and ordered, "Open it."

As the force field began to deactivate from the top down, Lorne took a step backwards. Varnerin stepped forward, trying to gain dominance and to be the first thing Lorne saw as the cell opened.

"But you do feel him, don't you?" he said chillingly as he stepped inside the open cell. "Michael, I mean. _It's in my head. Make it stop._ That's what you were talking about, isn't it?"

"I barely remember my transformation," Lorne answered.

"You don't remember brandishing a scalpel against the doctor to make her tend to Teyla's injuri—?"

"She needed help," Lorne said.

"Why is that?" Varnerin asked harshly. "Perhaps you don't remember kidnapping Richard in order to escape the city?"

"I wasn't trying to escape Atlantis," Lorne said, dispassionate again.

With no warning, and moving surprisingly quickly for one of his size, Varnerin thrust his hand forward and caught Lorne completely unaware, discharging the taser against the side of his neck. Though Lorne jerked with the electro-shock, and pain was evident in his eyes, he made no sound.

"Every time you lie to me you will receive more of the same," Varnerin said, and then pulled the device away from Lorne.

"I wasn't trying to escape Atlantis," Lorne repeated. Varnerin frowned, and raised the taser again. "Teyla… I had to get her out of the city. It isn't safe for her here any more."

Curious, Varnerin asked, "Why?"

"No one understands," Lorne answered. "There are people here that wish her harm."

"No one understands what?"

Lorne shook his head, and a moment later when he had still made no answer, Varnerin thrust forward and shocked him again.

"I asked you a question," the professor rumbled before he pulled the device away.

"She must not come to harm." Lorne repeated when he could speak. Still he sidestepped the question that Varnerin really wished to have answered. The professor raised his arm again, ready to bring the taser to the hybrid Lorne's neck again.

Lorne lashed out. He blocked the incoming weapon with a crushing blow to Varnerin's elbow that forced him to open his hand. The taser went flying across the cell to bounce harmlessly against one of the corner posts. In the next moment, the hybrid-former-Atlantis officer struck out and grabbed Varnerin by the throat, force marched the man backward and slammed him once against the bars at the side of the cell before lifting him off the ground. It was a surprising feat for a man of Lorne's size against one as big as the professor.

"Atlantis' days are numbered. I can promise you that," Lorne said through gritted teeth, his pale, hybrid eyes burning with anger for just a split second, before the stun beam from the guard's stunner hit him twice in quick succession, and he fell to the ground.

Varnerin landed hard, but managed to keep his feet, pulled down the front of his jacket to set himself right, and looked down on the unconscious hybrid. He took a deep breath, trying to appear unruffled. There would be plenty of time to break the creature and discover all he wished to know about the hybrid's master once his equipment was properly installed.

**

Halling had been reluctant, at first, to allow Teyla to re-enter the meditation, but as she had explained her feelings to him and as her distress had mounted at his continued refusal, he had softened and had finally relented.

The drug was as bitter as she remembered it, and this time she had to force her belly to accept it, lying down on her side and curling up. Unconsciously she mirrored the position in which Michael had appeared to her in her dream.

It was a long time before the drug took a hold and she was able to bring to focus the image in her mind, of Michael and of the room that had been her prison after the birth of her son.

She could feel the explosions that were striking the ground outside, and through the window the occasional bright flash showed brilliant against the darkness. Teyla was afraid.

The sound of the door latch lifting, and then the door scraping against the floor of the room, pulled her eyes away from her fearful watch through the thick, frosted windows. She looked up sullenly as the door opened, expecting Michael. Instead she gasped in surprise as Kanaan came in.

"Kanaan," she said, and in her mind she harboured a hope that perhaps he had come to bring her from this place of clinical coldness, and rusted walls.

"Stay where you are," he told her. "You must rest as much as necessary in case we are forced to leave quickly."

"We can leave _now_, Kanaan," she said, and started to reach for the side of the blanket that covered her. "Take me to where he is keeping our son, and the three of us can leave together. My friends can help you, they—"

"Your _friends_ are the cause of all this," he said, and after pointedly closing the door, he gestured toward the windows. "They have led the Wraith too close to this position."

"Colonel Sheppard is here?" she asked excitedly. Hope stirred inside her. If the Colonel and the others had found her, it would not be long before she had freedom from this; had her son in her arms.

Kanaan shook his head as he walked toward the window. "The Lanteans were fooled into taking another direction, believing nothing here. They were never any concern." He turned to face her as the sob of disappointment burst out of her. "The Wraith—"

"Kanaan, please," she begged him. "You must find a way to contact them, to bring them back."

"You must stop this," he told her. "You must realise that this is your place now."

"No," she hiccupped. "That is not _you_ speaking, Kanaan, that is Michael. Please listen to me—"

"He has gone to arrange a diversion for the Wraith. He will send our cruisers to try and draw them away. He will return soon." Kanaan told her without emotion, without registering what she was trying to say to him.

"I don't care about him!" she spat vehemently, though even as the words left her lips, she felt her belly twisting with the lie of it.

"Yes, Teyla, you do," Kanaan said, and turned to her again. "I know you. I have seen the two of you. You care, and it is right that you care. Yours will be a position of greatness. You—"

There was little warning… only a small, buzzing sound filled the air before the window pane exploded inward, shattered to impale Kanaan with shards of glass, and the faint crackle of energy – as from a Wraith stunner – fizzled around him from the small dart-like object embedded in the side of his neck.

"Kanaan, no…!"

She threw off the blanket and crossed the room as quickly as she could. Her belly sent painful cramps through her body, almost stealing the strength from her legs. She all but fell beside him, reached for him as his body began to strain for breath.

"Kanaan, no…" she moaned, "you can't…"

"Teyla," he gasped, his voice bubbling as though his lungs were filled with treacle. "Don't… don't…"

"Do not try to speak," she told him, and then turning her head she called over her shoulder, a desperate cry. "Help!"

She tried to reach for the object in his neck, but Kanaan's fingers gripped her arm.

"No," he said, "listen… Don't… don't worry… about— about the… child…"

"Sshh," she tried to soothe him, running her fingers through his hair. Her hand shook. "Please, Kanaan, save your strength. Our child—"

Gripping her as tightly as his failing strength would allow, he shook his head. "In… time," he took another bubbling breath, "…you… you will come… to realise—"

"Teyla," Michael's urgent cry made her turn her head so quickly that she almost overbalanced. "Move away from him. Now!"

She hadn't heard him open the door. She had been so focussed in her fear, in Kanaan's suffering.

"What did you do to him!" she growled at Michael, and ignoring the pain, her centre of balance still unsteady from the birth, she threw herself toward him, lashing out. Easily he caught her, spun her around and held her tightly, struggling against him, restrained so that she could not hurt herself.

"Teyla…" Kanaan gasped weakly.

"Teyla, listen to me," Michael said firmly, breathing out hard, in the way she knew he did when he was controlling his temper. "The device embedded in his neck is of Wraith design. It is a seeker, programmed to find specific DNA and loaded with enough toxin to kill everyone in this room who possesses that DNA. It will only be a matter of time before it works its way free of him. Don't _fight_ me."

"How do you know?" She moaned, feeling the truth from him, even as her eyes drifted back to Kanaan, who had begun to shake with convulsions.

"I know because I designed them," he said, and she thought he sounded almost sorrowful, "a long time ago."

"Please, Michael," she could not bear to see Kanaan hurting, "help him."

"There is nothing I _can_ do," Michael told her, loosening his hold on her, "he is already—"

"Please!"

He let go of her then, and started toward Kanaan. "Do not come any closer until I tell you it is safe. When I do, I will need the silver case that is beneath the incubation chamber."

She wrapped her arms around herself as she watched him move toward Kanaan, quickly make a grab for the device and turning, slam it against the wall beneath the window to blunt the needle. Then drawing his weapon he threw it away from him, and aiming, fired a long burst of energy at the thing until it tumbled harmlessly to the floor. Only when all this was done, did he turn his attention to Kanaan.

"The case," he demanded. As quickly as she could, Teyla brought the case to him, and knelt beside Kanaan on the opposite side from Michael.

"How can I help?" she asked.

"There is nothing you can do, rest. I will do what I can for him." Michael answered. She started to get up, but Michael suddenly caught her wrist, and when she looked at him, he met her gaze sadly. "Teyla, you must realise that it may already be too late."

"He tried to save him," she breathed, opening her eyes. Halling frowned at her in confusion.

"What are you talking about?" Halling asked softly, helping her to sit up, and steadying her when she swayed. "Who tried to save whom?"

"Michael, to save Kanaan," she said. Halling's frown deepened. "The Wraith had found us, fired some kind of dart into the building that—" she stopped.

"Teyla?"

"But then… why was he so worried? My DNA does not match Kanaan's, and—"

"Teyla, you are making no sense," Halling told her.

She sighed, "Michael said that the device the Wraith had fired into the room carried poison, and that there was enough to kill all three of us, but he had also said that it was programmed to search for a specific DNA. I can understand that Michael would have shared his own DNA with his hybrids, but… why would that put _me_ in danger?"

"I cannot answer that question," Halling said sadly. "Perhaps whatever he had been… injecting into you, for the sake of the baby, also carried his DNA."

Teyla sighed at the mention of the baby. "Perhaps," she said softly. "Either way, Michael had tried, for my sake, to save Kanaan. It is some small thing to be thankful for."

"You really _do_ believe you will find good in him," Halling observed, shaking his head. Teyla did not answer. She had already given reason enough for needing to do so… though it was not the only one.

**

"Why are you pacing, Doctor?"

McKay stopped and turned to face the psychologist. "You want to know why I'm pacing? I'll tell you why I'm pacing. I'm pacing because I'd laid all this to rest, put it to bed and here you go, dredging it up again, seemingly to satisfy your own morbid sense of curiosity. You get off on this kind of thing or something?"

"There's no need to get personal, Doctor McKay," Varnerin said quietly.

"No need t—" Rodney was beside himself and started pacing again. "But that's exactly what this is, Professor. It's personal. You're asking me questions, technically, about my medical history and you're expecting me to be all 'up close and personal' with you. Well, newsflash, genius, I don't know you."

"I'm just another doctor," Varnerin purred, "like Keller. You'd talk to her, right?"

"Oh, believe me, you are _nothing _like Jennifer." McKay snapped. He paced for a while, until he realised that Varnerin was saying nothing. He turned to face the man again, and saw him watching, making notes on the pad in his black leather folder. "What's that? What are you…?"

"All right, Doctor McKay," Varnerin said. "Tell me about Teyla."

"Teyla?" McKay blinked in confusion, "I thought this was supposed to be about me, she—"

"You wrote in your post rescue—"

"Post mission," he corrected the professor.

"Forgive me," Varnerin said smoothly, "You wrote in your post _mission_ report that you observed Teyla apparently enjoying freedom on Michael's cruiser, that she… _shared what looked like an intimate moment with him. _What does that mean exactly?"

"Look," McKay said, coming to perch on the edge of the chair opposite the psychologist. "I was… hurt. I'd undergone surgery at Michael's hands, was scared to death… though that doesn't leave this room…"

"Of course not, Rodney, everything that goes on in this room is confidential," Varnerin said.

"… so given all of the above, it's entirely possible that some of my… observations and interpretations may have been a little… off."

"Off?"

"Wrong?" Rodney said.

"What if they weren't?" Varnerin said. "How would that make you feel about Teyla?"

"I don't feel any differently about Teyla now than I—"

"All right," Sheppard's voice, sounding more than a little piqued, interrupted McKay as the door suddenly opened, in spite of being locked, and when McKay saw Zelenka standing behind Colonel Sheppard, he understood how. "This inquisition is over as of now."

"What is the meaning of this, Colonel Sheppard," Varnerin got to his feet, his face dark, especially as Sheppard stalked inside and faced off against the man.

"Until you can answer, to my satisfaction, the reason you used punitive interrogation methods against a former member of my command—"

"I did no such thing," Varnerin protested.

"Don't lie, Professor," Sheppard snapped. "The marine guarding Lorne's cell reported your use of the taser."

"The hybrid—"

"That _man_ is a former member of my command who'll be treated properly, according to the articles of war laid down in the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the use of punitive interrogation."

"He used a taser on Lorne?" McKay asked, standing up and moving to Sheppard's side.

"Before Lorne finally defended himself, and pinned the bastard to the wall, yeah." He sighed. "The marine had to take him down with a stunner or our _friend_ here would likely be throttled to death."

"The hybrid is dangerous," Varnerin said. "A security risk. He shouldn't be allowed to remain in the city."

"Heard it all before," Sheppard said, bored.

"And believe me," McKay added, "Keeping him here is a whole lot safer than letting him go… anywhere else."

**

Todd let out another sigh as he watched the same disintegration happen in a blood sample taken from one of the hybrids and exposed to another modification he'd made to his serum.

"You realise of course he lied to you?" the hybrid from the first alcove moved to the limits of his restraints.

"Of course he did," Todd rumbled. "In his position I would do the same."

"But at the same time, he gave you the key," the hybrid said. "He doesn't ask questions that are not relevant. It's not his way."

Growling in irritation, Todd turned away from the microscope to face the hybrid. "If you have something to say, then stop wasting my time and say it."

"Why do you think he questioned which Wraith you'd used as a template?" the hybrid asked.

"He said he was questioning my method, he…" Todd trailed off, thinking, considering everything he knew; everything he had done.

"He was questioning your sanity more like," the hybrid said. "To use a mere sub-commander's DNA as the key to your work?"

Todd blinked. How could he have been so blind? "The DNA is not strong enough to complete the propagation of itself within the human cells. I need a stronger template."

"Why settle for strong_er_," the hybrid asked, but Todd was not listening. He had already made the necessary leap.

"I need to use the Queen's DNA," he purred softly. "Now all I need to do is acquire it."


	3. Act 3

**Act 3**

Vega looked up as the movement in the doorway caught her attention, in time to see the Queen's other handmaiden make a sudden grab for the side of the wall.

Thankful for the warning Todd had given to her, and for the chance it gave her to forge a good relationship with the other woman, she hurried to her side.

"Lean on me," she told her and wrapped a supportive arm around her waist. The woman winced, but let go of the wall to wrap a death grip around Vega's shoulders.

"I don't…" the woman's voice was hoarse.

"Yes, you can," Vega said, "It's just a few more steps. You can take my cot. It's closer."

The woman nodded and together they made it to the bedside. "I don't even know your name," the woman said to Vega as she helped her to lie back.

"Alicia," she said.

"Merihanna," the woman said. "Most just call me Hanna." Then she closed her eyes, and began to cry softly.

Vega sat beside her and gently stroked her hair, "It's okay to cry," she whispered, blinking rapidly to banish the tears of sympathy from her own eyes.

"You didn't," Merihanna said, turning her head up to see Vega, "When he sent you back."

Vega sighed, "I did my share of crying," she said.

Merihanna reached up her hand, trembling terribly, to run her fingertips over the abrasions left by the sub-commander that had attacked her. Vega flinched.

"Sorry," Merihanna said, and pulled her hand away. Vega caught it as it fell; cradled it between her own.

"It's all right," she said.

"I suppose I should be thankful that at least the Hive Commander didn't feed on me." She looked up into Vega's eyes. "Did it hurt?"

She nodded, adding, "But… no more than… anything else."

For a moment she hated herself. The moment the lie left her lips she felt like the biggest bitch in the galaxy. Like the girl in high school that always pretends to be your friend just to have an alibi for illicit nights out, or wild parties… How would _she_ know the pain of 'anything else?' She hadn't done anything more than flirt with the idea based on some stupid psychological captor-victim twisted transference complex. How could she know that – if she'd had the nerve to actually allow Todd more than just permission to create the illusion…? She shivered. What if he'd just—?

"Alicia?" Merihanna touched her knee, drawing her out of her angry, fearful reveries and away from the demon atop her shoulder that whispered, _'because he's not like that.'_

She shook her head. "Just thinking," she told Merihanna, then asked, "Have you had the chance to bathe?"

Merihanna shook her head and Vega started to get up to go and draw a bath for her. "You'll feel better once you do," she said.

"I just want to sleep," Merihanna said.

"Bathe first, then sleep," she answered. "I'll help you."

As she watched the water swirling in to fill the bath, and then looked back at Hanna, she swore to have nothing more to do with Todd – like she had a choice.

**

"Teyla, it's reckless," Halling argued, pacing back and forth. "This is meant only as a last resort, for a single occasion. This will make the third."

"But it's been _days_,Halling—"

"No, Teyla," he said a little harshly. "Hasn't this _maniac_ taken enough from you already?" he took her roughly by the arm and pulled her around to face the mirror. "Look at yourself. You're exhausted. You're barely eating. You've lost your lover, your son… Your friends hardly recognise you."

"I understand you are afraid for me, Halling, but how can I be myself – how can I _understand_ myself – unless I know everything."

"Do not let him take _your_ life as well," Halling appealed.

She placed a hand onto his chest and felt his wildly beating heart beneath her fingers.

"I am frightened too, my friend," she said softly, "for many reasons."

"Then let it go, Teyla," he appealed quietly, but she could see in his eyes that his resolve was weakening.

"I cannot," she answered, "or I will truly lose myself."

Halling sighed. "You are stronger than ever _I_ could be," he said. "When first Michael took us, and the day he took Kara, I thought—"

"As difficult as it is to understand, I do not think he would have hurt any of you," she said.

"He made hybrids of us, Teyla!" Halling's voice rose, but it was in fear, and she suspected he had suspicions of the veracity of the statement, as she did. Finally he added, "I will never forgive him, Teyla."

"I do not expect you to," she said, but in that moment felt a part of her knotting against a pang of grief. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, he was holding out a small beaker, filled with the deep green liquid of the drug, in her direction.

"The last time," he said firmly as she took it from him, and drank it back quickly, steeling herself against the bitterness of it – both physical and metaphorical.

Michael looked up at her from where he still worked hurriedly, trying to save Kanaan. There was question in his eyes, and an expression of sorrowful apology on his face, and yet still, he straightened the hybrid's arm, to find the rapidly collapsing vein. Understanding the truth of the moment, Teyla reached out and laid a trembling hand over the top of Michael's.

"No," she whispered. "You have tried your best. I know you have."

"Teyla, I—"

"Mich-ael, please," her breath caught in the middle of his name, and she gripped his hand tightly. After only a moment, he let go of the syringe he was still holding, and turned his hand beneath hers, bringing the other to cradle her hand between the two of his.

"Come," he said softly, beginning to draw her to her feet. Trembling she took a step toward him as they stood. "I _am_ sorry, Teyla. He… had… great affection—"

Unable to hear the words spoken, she laid her head on Michael's chest and wept. For a time he was stiff, immobile, as though uncertain, then he laid one hand across her shoulders and held her to him, somewhat awkwardly.

"Please, Michael – my son… I cannot lose him as well," she whispered through the tears. She felt him tense, and then he drew her to arm's length, looking down at her, into her eyes.

"Have I ever once told you that you may _never_ see your son?" he asked softly.

She frowned, trying to remember. He waited, seeming content enough to allow her the time to examine her memories. She remembered that he told her he did not think it wise. He had taken Nethaiye while she delivered her son's afterbirth, but he had not told her she would never see him.

_"He is _my_ son, _my_ child," she replied as vehemently as she had ever spoken to him, "he needs to be with his mother."_

_"In time," he said softly._

Mutely she shook her head, dislodging tears that ran down her cheeks. Michael hesitated for just a heartbeat, and then, seeming even more uncertain that before, said, "Then, trust me now."

As she opened her mouth to answer him, a sudden, and very close, explosion rocked the ground under their feet. Unbalanced, she grabbed Michael's arm for support, and he shifted his arms around her to help keep her upright. The deepest of frowns appeared on his face.

"In the chest at the foot of the bed are your clothes," he said, starting to move to bring her in that direction. "Get dressed. We may have to leave." As they reached the chest, he let go of her and strode purposefully toward the door. "Wait for me here. I will not be long."

Shivering with the sudden cold as she changed, Teyla tried to imagine what might be happening. The sounds of battle, after Kanaan's fall, had begun to fade, and then suddenly they were under attack again. Kanaan had said that her friends had been driven away, and that Michael was arranging to divert the Wraith. How had this failed? What had happened?

She had no idea how much time had passed, but jumped to her feet as she heard Michael return. Something in his manner, something about the emotions she felt from him, made her take a step away.

"Change in plan," he said almost angrily, and strode to her, lunging to catch her wrist and pull her in closer. "Your friends have interfered for the last time, Teyla."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her fear rising, as he spun her in his arms, pinned her to him, and reached for something from the pouch at his waist.

"There was a subspace transmission from your secondary battle cruiser to the departing Hive as the Hive retreated," he growled, as she began to struggle with him even more when she saw the syringe in his hand. "They reported the presence of our cruisers that tricked the Lanteans into going another way. However, the Wraith extrapolated the possibilities for the point of origin of the cruisers. In short, they gave away our position."

"Don't, please," she begged as he thrust her against the bench, used his weight to pin her against the bench and twisted her hand behind her, to hold her even more still. "You cannot know that."

"It is the _only _possibility that makes sense and now we have no clear trajectory for escape from this place." She turned her head, saw him use his teeth to take the cap from the needle. "Since your _friends_ got us into this, now they must get us out."

"Please… Michael, no!"

She struggled in his arms as he held her, pinned her against the bench, restrained, his hand almost crushing hers. The sharp sting of the needle against the side of her neck was just the beginning. She felt the cold run of liquid into her vein, chilling her as he pushed the fluid from the syringe, and though she knew she should not, for it would hasten the flow of the drug inside of her, she struggled harder.

Fear… no, it was greater than fear. Panic gripped her as he let her up… literally threw the spent syringe away from them as if in anger or disgust and immediately wrapped her in his arms, pulling her close, holding her against him as, even through her struggling, the convulsions began.

"Look at me," he told her. The emotion in his voice made her want to and looking up she saw the anguish in his expression. "I need you to understand, they have left me no choice. There is no other way."

"What have you done?" she gasped, more painful convulsions spreading through her.

"I've given you a massive dose of a Wraith neural enzyme. Your body already produces it, and beyond this… physical discomfort, you won't be harmed. But it's necessary if I'm to do what I have to do… to keep you safe."

One of his hands moved to cradle the back of her head, keeping her eyes locked with his as she stopped struggling against him and looked up at Michael, jerking and trembling in his arms. More so in that moment than in any other she felt him… the press of his hand against the small of her back, his fingers wound into her hair and the heat of his body pressed close against hers. Her tiny hands trembled against his chest as the darkness of his mind began to close in on her… pushing through all that she knew… all that she remembered.

"Forgive me, Teyla…" he craved.

_-forgive me, Teyla- -forgive me- -forgive-_

Halling caught her as she fell backwards. Her breathing was shallow – barely there at all. Panic gripped him as he gently laid his hand over her heart and felt it fluttering and straining under his fingers.

"Stay with me, Teyla," he moaned softly, "more than ever, we need your guidance now." He took her cold hand between the two of his and held it tightly. "We cannot go on without you."

**

He could not see, he could not hear, and all that he could feel was the pain of the many days of torment at the hands of the Hive Commander. Moving was like standing in the hottest of fires, but being still left him dangerously chilled. He forced his swollen joints to bend his knees, to bring them to his aching belly, his bruised and broken ribs compressed to a dull ache by the pressure of them.

With an audible sob he let his head fall back against the wall, and through trembling breaths whispered, "Teyla…" Knowing there was only one course left to him.

"Teyla, Teyla, Teyla," he whispered again, remembering the last time he had felt such despair. "F-orgive… me."

_-forgive me, Teyla- -forgive me- -forgive-_

_As her struggles ended, as she went limp and heavy in his arms, he laid his head beside hers. A buzzing threatened to overwhelm him and he felt something almost like pain grip his chest._

_She was barely breathing, and he knew that if he left her there was a very real possibility that she would stop. He had to believe that the Lanteans would find her before that could happen. He had to believe in his own assertion that, until he could regain ground against the Wraith, she would be safer in Atlantis._

_He carefully lowered her to the ground and, for just a moment, considered covering her with a blanket, but common sense prevailed. They would see the action for what it was if it looked too staged, and so, removing the subspace tracking device he had taken from her when she had been brought to him, he activated the device, and dropped it to the ground beside her body._

_"Get the remaining cruisers into the air," he ordered the hybrids who had answered his silent call. "Fight only as long as it takes to achieve the space to open a hyperspace window, and proceed to the nebula. I will join you with the child as soon as it is safe to do so."_

_They turned to obey at once and, with one last, long look at Teyla, as she lay deathlike on the ground, he turned and, after collecting the baby, headed for the lowest levels of the compound._

_The laboratory there was shielded; the entrance well hidden, and the catacombs behind, that served as holding cells, would provide the perfect shelter for the both of them until the Lanteans had collected Teyla and taken her back to the city, and the Wraith were long gone… and if any should find their way below…_

_He keyed the code into the hidden panel beside the concealed door, and as soon as the door opened, the two, massive creatures he had left free, as guardians for the laboratory, turned his way menacingly. He reached out mentally, and at once they fell back, allowing him entry, flanking him like some enormous bug-like bodyguards._

_Systematically, he freed the others from the holding cells, and chose the deepest of them, the most hidden in which to wait, watching the video feed from the room in which he had left Teyla on the Wraith tablet he carried with him. If the Lanteans did not come for her…_

_The baby began to fuss quietly in his arms, and he looked down at him, reaching into his young mind to try and ascertain his needs…_

_-Teyla-_

**

Teyla took in a shuddering breath – Michael's mental touch echoing in her mind, trembling through her – a clap of thunder in her soul.

"Thank the Ancestors!" Halling caught her up in a tight embrace as she began to wake.

**

Exhaustion weighted his every step as they led Michael to the Queen's chamber. There was no part of him that didn't hurt and he felt the weakness that came with his hunger, and with the constant degradation of his cells. He needed rest. He needed freedom from pain.

They brought him to the centre of her chamber and let go of him, and even before any could give him the instruction, he slowly lowered himself to one knee and bowed his head.

He heard her move, felt the guards withdraw from his side. He sighed.

Her fingers curled almost gently beneath his chin and she raised his face to hers. He kept his eyes downcast.

_=look at me= =at me= =me=_

**

She felt his exhaustion and his pain as she reached into his mind. Even ordered to do so, he still resisted meeting her gaze. A thrill went through her. It had been a long, hard road he had walked.

"Look at me," she said aloud.

"My… Queen…" he could barely be heard. His voice was so hoarse, so broken, but this time he slowly raised his eyes to meet hers.

"All of this pain," she murmured to him, releasing his chin from her grasp. "All of this… suffering," she ran the backs of her fingers down the side of his bruised and bloodied face and he flinched, but forced himself to be still, "Could have been avoided."

She waited to see if he would speak, would argue, but no words came from his lips, nor the defiant touch of his mind in hers.

"We have had our differences in the past," she purred softly, beginning to circle him slowly, "our disagreements and misunderstandings." She stopped behind him, reaching to run a hand over his shoulder, the blackening bruise already creeping upward on his neck. "But never so long and so hard."

"For…give…" he started to gasp.

"Ssssh," she almost gently ran the pads of her fingers through his hair. "Remember."

**

Michael felt her deepen the touch into his mind…

_Though she had summoned him, even after waiting in her chambers, she still had not arrived, and he still felt the beckoning pull of her mind. Risking her anger again he quietly mounted the steps of her dais, heading for the doorway he knew lay behind the throne._

_At first he was fearful, until he felt the almost amused invitation wrap around his tentative approach._

_In the doorway he halted, lowering himself to one knee, his eyes downcast, but not before he saw the exquisite curve of her naked shoulder and back, resting just above the water of her bathing pool._

_Beside her, a new handmaiden visibly trembled as she massaged soft soap along the Queen's outstretched arm._

_-my Queen- _

_His reaching was tentative, careful._

_"Rise, my chosen. Come to me," she said. She waved away the girl, who abased herself before withdrawing to allow him to her side._

_"I seek only your pleasure, My Queen," he said and once again lowered himself beside her in devotion. She laughed softly._

_"Do not lie to me," she said light-heartedly. "You came because I sent for you, and because you were curious."_

_"It does not mean that I do not _also_ seek your pleasure," he admitted._

_She laughed softly, and held out her hand to him, beginning to rise. He took her hand, and the soft wrap from the handmaiden, and swaddled the Queen in the warm fabric as she climbed out of the bathing pool. His blood began to roar through his veins at the sight of her as he wrapped her._

_She chuckled, and gave him an almost coquettish look over her shoulder as she traversed the small space to her cushioned bed._

_=in time= =when we are ready=_

The memory ended abruptly, leaving him gasping with the weight of her remembered desires… her rapid fulfilment at his hands. He swayed, dangerously close to falling, light headed and near to passing out. He saw her wave her hands and with no warning a woman appeared beside him, gently caught his arm, but even so the pain was overwhelming.

He saw her frown, and the woman let go.

"It seems that I, in my turn, must see to your care, as you have seen to mine," the Queen said softly. "The guards will take you back to your rest, as you are resting I will send a handmaiden to _tend_ to you."

He did not miss the reference, and could not help but glance at the woman who still knelt, shaking at his side. He swallowed hard and somehow managed to dredge the words from the depths of his churning gut.

"Thank… you… my… Queen."

**

Vega stood for some time, looking at him from just inside the bars – until long after the drone had left, closing the door behind her. Michael lay on his side, his eyes closed, and up close, he was even more of a mess than he looked from across the Queen's chamber.

_She felt his hand close in her hair and a moment later he pulled her head back, painfully, until she looked up into his eyes. Terrified she started to reach for his hand with her own that was not pinned to her side by his nearness. She struggled to free herself, but he slapped her hand away, and then caught her wrist to pin her to the bulkhead._

_"Wrong choice, Captain," he told her, towering over her, appearing massive, deadly. "Let's not make this any more unpleasant that it needs to be."_

"Not so tough now," she murmured, finally crossing the small cell toward him, setting down the tray on which she carried her supplies on the shelf nearby, before leaning down and reaching to nudge Michael awake. She all but yelped when his left hand shot out and caught her wrist.

He opened his eyes, and seemed to relax a little when he saw who it was.

"Captain Vega," he said hoarsely.

"Michael," she said, taking a deep breath to try and get herself under control. "She sent me to—" She stopped as a rasping chuckle escaped him, almost bubbling from inside of him. "What the hell is funny?"

"I never thought to hear that name here, on the Hive," he explained as he struggled to sit up. "Abomination… Renegade… It…"

"Oh stop," she said sarcastically, "you're breaking my heart."

"I don't expect your sympathy," he said.

"Good," she snapped, "because if it was up to me, I'd be happy to see you rot in hell."

"Then it is… fortunate… for me," he said coldly, "that it isn't up to you."

"You think I can't see through you?" she hissed, and remembering she had been sent for a reason, reached for one of the cloths from the bowl of water, then lowered herself to barely perch on the edge of the cot.

He had retreated to the corner like a wounded animal and, as she began to reach for him, snarled at her in much the same way.

"Neither am _I_ fooled by your little… deception," he said, "and I wonder which of us the Queen would be more likely to believe."

She frowned, worried. "What do you mean?" she said.

She knew what he was talking about, and her stomach turned in a circle. She forced herself to be still when he reached across between the two of them and quite forcefully, given his condition, tilted her head to the side, exposing her neck, and then barely ran his fingertips over the mark still there.

She endured the touch for only a few seconds before she jerked her head away from him, pushed at his wrist.

"It's cleverly done," he said softly, "but entirely too precisely placed to have been… a product of that kind of intimacy. Neither was the skin broken," he added in amused tones. "Far too gentl—"

"What the hell do _you_ know!" she snapped defensively.

"I know more about that one than you could possibly believe," he met her gaze, almost as if he were challenging her to contradict him.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean," she demanded, and finally began to press the cloth against the gash at the side of his neck, to clean away the dried blood.

"Know your enemies, Captain Vega," he said, and gasped a little at the rough way in which she cleaned his wounds. "It is something you would do well to remember," he continued hoarsely, "It is one of your human sayings, after all."

She stopped and drew back her hands from where she was carefully wiping at the burned side of his neck.

"Taken a look at yourself lately?" she asked, glaring at him. "You're not exactly in the kind of position to be giving that kind of advice."

"On the contrary," she could see he was struggling with the pain her treatment of him was bringing, and couldn't help but feel a kind of satisfaction at that. After all he'd done to her, everything to which he'd delivered her, he deserved it.

"This," he looked around as he continued talking, "was once my Hive. I have seen these kinds of dramas played out a thousand times and always the same outcomes, the same sorry and unnecessary defeats; the same sick victories."

"Oh, shut up," she made a face against the twisting fear his words were turning inside of her, the fears he was rekindling, feigning boredom or irritation at his words.

"You think yourself exempt from it all because of a moment's… supposed servitude?" he gestured with his eyes once more to the bite mark at the side of her neck. "Think he will show you any loyalty?"

"I said, shut up," she warned, swallowing hard.

"He is a Wraith, and you must remember that." Far from stopping, Michael continued chillingly, "Beside his own furtherance, whether he will admit it or not, he lives his life in service of the Queen, and she is fickle."

Vega harrumphed, "Tell me something I _don't_ know." but her light heartedness faded as he continued.

"What promises has she made to you, Vega? That she will send you only to him? That she will not invade what little privacy you think you have left. How do you know she hasn't already, and has seen through your little… ruse?" He was relentless in his verbal assault, fixed his eyes on hers and continued talking, "And even… when you think yourself safe, as you step across the threshold of the chambers assigned to you, you think you do not harbour a viper at your breast? That because you are both her handmaidens… both used… abused… that you can trust her; that she is your friend – someone whom you should not hate?"

_-hate- -hate- -hate-_

The word echoed softly in her mind as she saw a mental image of Hanna's face.

"Do you believe that just because she is your fellow handmaiden, both beleaguered in service to the Queen, that you should not try to rise above her; usurp her position with the Hive Commander?"

_-with the Hive Commander- -the Hive Commander- -Hive Commander-_

"Do you think she would not do the same; take your precious scientist from you; approach the Queen to suggest… go to him?"

_-approach the Queen- -the Queen- -Queen- -Go to him- -to him- -him-_

Words and visions continued to echo around in confusion inside her head, and she barely heard the words he was speaking. Some kind of warning trickled along her spine and in a sudden rush of awareness she realised what he was trying to do. She took the only line of defence she knew, and lashing out, caught, and jarred his left shoulder.

He cried out in pain, tore his eyes away from her, and – she supposed it must have been an instinctive reaction – pulled back his broken and bound right hand, before he froze, snarling at her.

"What are you going to do?" she taunted him. "Feed on me? Some joke _that _is."

Slowly he lowered his hand, took several deep breaths, his eyes closed. "Believe me or do not," he said quietly, without opening his eyes. "But remember that I know this place – this Queen."

She set the bowl beside him on the bed and got up to go and call for the drone guard to release her from his cell.

"There is food – good food – on the tray. I'll leave you the water and cloths so that you can see to your own injuries. They'll bring you fresh clothing, Michael, but _I_ won't come to you again," she said.

"Goodbye, Captain," Michael said, opening his eyes at last.

"_Good_bye," she answered.

**

"What the hell's going on?" Sheppard asked as he stormed into Woolsey's office. "I just received word from Warsh and his team that you pulled them off M8B-447."

"I did, yes," Woolsey said, without looking up from his paperwork.

"After we specifically said we'd help them against the Wraith." Sheppard folded his arms, waiting until Woolsey finally looked up at him. "We can't _do_ this, Woolsey."

"There was no sign of the Wraith on that planet, Colonel Sheppard," Woolsey said smoothly.

"Not yet, no," Sheppard agreed, "but did you take into account the three Wraith Hive ships that came out of hyperspace on the edge of that system?"

"You know this how?" Woolsey asked, his brow crinkling into an uncertain frown.

"I know this because I asked Rodney to scan the system using our subspace sensors," he answered.

"Why wasn't I told?" Woolsey demanded.

"Did you even _ask_?" Sheppard countered. "Would you have taken any notice if you had been told?"

Woolsey sighed, "I'm not the enemy, Colonel."

Sheppard gave him an angry look and then keyed his headset mic. "Warsh, this is Sheppard, ready your team. Assemble in the Gate room."

Just as quickly, Woolsey keyed his own headset. "Belay that order, Captain."

Sheppard leaned both hands onto the top of Woolsey's desk, leaning down to speak almost directly into the man's face.

"When are you going to stop countermanding my orders," he demanded, "undermining my authority?"

"When you do," Woolsey answered. "Colonel Sheppard, we have priorities. We have to see to the safety of this base first, or we'll not be able to help _anyone,_ least of all ourselves. I won't send our men into a hopeless situation."

"It's _not_ a hopeless situation," Sheppard almost shouted, standing up and pacing a few steps away. "Least it _wasn't_ until you pulled them out in the first place. They could have seen to the evacuation of the people to their safe haven, left a skeleton crew there as a last resort backup, and got the hell out. But no… you had to go and pull them, without checking with me, without finding out what their orders were."

"There are survivors on that planet, Colonel Sheppard," Woolsey said. "That's a resource that we, and the people of the Pegasus galaxy, can't afford to ignore any longer."

"What!" Sheppard swung back around to face him, "You'd sacrifice an entire planet just to take out a handful of the Wraith with survivors of the Hoffan plague? How many Wraith do you think they'd kill? One? Two – before they figure out that their 'poison tasters' are dying a horrible death?"

"The death of a single Wraith can be significant," Woolsey said, "if it's the right Wraith."

"You won't take out a Queen with a survivor of exposure to the Hoffan drug, Woolsey. You _know_ you won't. They aren't stupid."

"They might not be stupid, Colonel, but they're hungry, and they're desperate. Under circumstances like that, people make mistakes." Woolsey said.

"You're a real piece of work. You know that!" Sheppard sighed angrily and then turned and headed for the door. "We're going to M8B-447."

"No, Colonel Sheppard, you're not," Woolsey said. "I've suspended all Gate travel until further notice. Besides which, you have an appointment."

"You son-of-a-bitch," Sheppard stopped and turned around to look Woolsey in the eyes. "You really are going to let our people sit around and do nothing while the galaxy falls under the advance of the Wraith."

"I told you – priorities." Woolsey said coldly.

**

There was little he'd been able to do about his fingers, or his shoulder, but to feel physically clean again, and with the minor injuries soothed by the antiseptic that had been in the water, not to mention the nourishing, wholesome food the Queen had sent to him, Michael no longer felt as though he was on the threshold between life and death.

Still, Vega's visit had left him feeling restless, too thoughtful for his own good. He could not afford to think. The only way he could survive here was instinct… and he had spent so long trying to tame his instincts – to subdue them like the wild animals that they were…

_"Every fibre in your body wants to kill me," he said, and watched as Ronon's face twisted into contortions of effort as the man obviously struggled internally. Michael almost wished that he would pull the trigger. At least then he, himself, would be absolved of the responsibility for what he suspected was to come. He fought his own instinct – to lash out in defence – to try and feed on the big Satedan. "Instinct is so hard to overcome, but what would happen to our alliance?"_

… he could not help but lift his aching right hand, study its smooth, clean palm through the bandages, titling his head at the tendrils of black and blue that had begun to stretch across it – bruising from his fingers spreading.

_"The last time I saw you, I really was going to feed on you…"_

But it was a lie… Why had he not simply told the truth then? Would that have led to an avoidance of all that came after?

**

Teyla moaned a little, and turned over in her sleep.

_"…I really was going to feed on you, but it was not a matter of choice. It was ... instinct."_

_She looked at him then, remembering the moment, remembering the fearful excitement, the silent, mental plea…_

_-come with me, Teyla- -come with me- -come-_

…_she had kept her face impassive, all too aware of Ronon standing behind her._

_"That is what you have come here to say?" she asked, and with the effort of holding everything inside, she sounded cold – unfeeling, uncaring. His sigh twisted a knife in her heart._

_"You have given me a very rare perspective among the Wraith." he said, barely looking up at her. "Few of us have ever come to know the humans we are going to feed on as anything more than a means to survive -- and still, I would do what I had to do. But what you did to me—"_

_"We did the same -- to survive," she said, but even as the words left her, she knew she was merely repeating the words that Ronon would expect to hear from her. She dearly wished that she had been able to come alone, so that she and Michael could speak as they needed to do, and not in this halting, awkward fashion._

_"I thought you were trying to help me," he said._

"What are you talking about?" she murmured, still sleeping fitfully, grappling with demons that had kept her awake long into the night.

Now that she knew, now that she had her memories returned to her and, if not completely understood, at least understandable enough to realise that the values, beliefs and actions of those humans in Atlantis, did not sit comfortably with her own.

_"She looked at me as if I was some kind of unclean thing." Michael's voice was as lost and as sorrowful as ever she had heard it. But still she did not want to be there…with him… under such circumstances, the same. Why couldn't he see that they would never be able to speak freely within the city walls? "I may appear as a Wraith again on the outside, but as far as they're concerned, I'm…" He stopped, apparently unable to bring himself to speak the word that was the name for what they thought of him. "That is why I need your help."_

_"What do you want?" It was all that she could do not to glance behind her, pointedly remind him of the marines that stood, waiting to kill him… given any excuse._

_"I can't stay here, and I can't return to the Wraith," he told her, "which means I need to make my own way, and to do that…"_

_In apparent oblivion of, or denial of, those marines, he began to walk toward her. _

_-come with me, Teyla- -come with me- -come-_

_She did the only thing she could. The only acceptable action in the eyes of those she knew were watching. She backed away. Behind her the marines raised their weapons. Smiling bitterly, Michael came to a halt._

_She tried to reach for him with her mind, call his name, make him _see_ that everything she had to do here was nothing compared to the resolution she truly wanted from this meeting – for him, but he closed his eyes and his mind to her entreaty._

_Was that when everything had changed?_

_"I need supplies and a ship," he said coldly, matter of fact._

_She knew that even if she asked it, the people of Atlantis would never grant her request, and the knife wound in her heart grew._

_"We are grateful for your help, but we can never release you -- not with the information you possess," she told him. We… always we… never _they_. Why was that?_

_"Then kill me now!" he cried._

…_no, Michael, no… …no, Michael… …no…_

_"There is another way," she told him sorrowfully._

_"Take the treatment again," he guessed, before she even had the chance to think it._

_But… could she have lived with him like that?_

She whimpered, just softly, as she began to drift toward waking, and began to twist a little beneath the blankets. In that hypnagogic state, she was sure she could feel the light scratch of insectoid feet, climbing her body; hear the flutter of its tiny little wings as it approached her… ready to feed.

_Michael placed the box at the foot of the bed. The restraints bit into her hands, and already she knew what the box contained…_

_"Your experiment failed." his voice was clipped, staccato as he glanced between her face and the light blinking above the door. "You decided to kill us."_

_"We believed we were left with no choice," she appealed to him, once more tried to reach for him with her mind. She was met with only the cold, blank nothing of his non-accepting anger, his disappointment, and his pain._

_"And now I am in the same position," he said and opened the side of the box and the bug within became visible to her. "You drove me to this."_

_And in that moment, she knew, without a doubt, that he was talking about her… and not just the humans on Atlantis._

She woke with a gasp, uncertain, unsure… caught between love and hate – at war with herself. Damned whichever way she turned.

"Halling!" she called out as if calling for a parent, as a child begging her father for solace after a nightmare of the worst kind.

He came to her with no questions, no words. He simply wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly to his chest, holding her while she wept.

**

The coming of the inclement weather was the fitting start to the morning as she stood in the doorway of the Athosian roundhouse she had occupied in the days since she had last used the drug. Drinking only water and the juice of a citrus fruit known for its cleansing properties, and eating only a thin gruel, she had spent many days in quiet contemplation.

She had to find her son, she would not abandon him, that much was true, and to do that, she had to find Michael, but when she found him, what then? Undeniably he had cared for her through the last days of her pregnancy, and through the birth of her child. Without question he had tried to save Kanaan, even knowing what the two of them had shared, for _her_ sake. Indisputably, he had returned her to Atlantis in order to save her from death at the hands of the Wraith, to keep her safe, locking her memories away so that she would not be troubled by accusations from the Lanteans.

Despite his best efforts the accusations had come. She had experienced some of that to which they had subjected him; mistrust, abuse… had used her – and not for the first time – in furthering only their own agenda, thinly disguised as what was best for the people of the Pegasus galaxy.

They had taken people from their home, experimented on them, and destroyed their failed results. They had employed biological warfare, had created a dangerous sickness which now was rife throughout the galaxy – admittedly at Michael's hands, but still… if it had not been perfected in the first place…

On the other hand, the things Michael had done, the murders, the experimentations of his own, the dissemination of the Hoffan drug… her sense of right baulked at accepting that he had done this only because he had been left with no other choice… but… what if she could _give_ him another choice, or was it already too late?

"What will you do?" Halling came to stand behind her, his hands resting against her shoulders as she looked out at the rain.

She sighed, and leaned back into him. "I do not know, Halling," she said. "He said that my son would be… an instrument of change, but… what if that change comes with the trials of his mother." She looked up at him then as he wrapped his arms around her and cradled her, rocking them both softly from side to side, his chin resting on the top of her head. "What if I am all that stands between the people of this galaxy, and the _mess_ that we have created of it? What would _you_ do in my place?"

She felt his sigh rather than heard it.

"Teyla," he said softly, "the only advice that I can give is what you, yourself, would say to another in your place. You must follow your heart."

She closed her eyes, "And if my heart leads me astray, Halling, what then?"

"Then we must pray that the Ancestors give us all the strength to see you guided in the way of right, but… I know you, Teyla. I know that your heart will guide you wisely," he said, "even in those times we do not understand the choices that you will make… And you will always have a home here, with your people, and what help that we can give you."

"Thank you, Halling," she whispered. She sighed softly, and closed her eyes again, listening to the sounds of the rain.

_What if I am all that stands between the people of this galaxy, and the mess that we have created of it?_

"I have no choice," she said quietly, after a moment or two. "I must return to Atlantis."

**

The surprising ease with which Todd had been able to acquire the Queen's DNA had led to an almost frenzied, unceasing effort of combination and recombination of his formulae. It was also a testament to how important the project was to her, that he had simply asked, and been granted one of the strongest samples. He had been taken, under guard, to her own hibernation chamber, and allowed to collect the residual materials it held in stasis inside her pod, and all because he had simply asked.

The computer sounded softly, signalling the end of another cycle, the _final_ cycle. The serum was complete, now all that remained was to test it.

Letting out a long, slow breath, Todd gave serious consideration to taking the hybrid who had been so vociferous and, in spite of their bargain, testing the retrovirus on him. It would be justly deserved, he thought, for the hybrid's interference in… other matters.

He growled softly as he changed his mind. He was entirely too honourable for his own good, he decided, but once he had given his word, he would move every obstacle to keep it.

"No," he rumbled softly, looking into the alcove at the sleeping hybrid. "Enjoy your safety while you may."

Quickly, he loaded a syringe with a sufficient dose of the serum, and then approached the remaining hybrid. The creature had fear written over its face as the chains at its wrists and feet tightened, drawing it back against the wall of the alcove, but at least it did not beg, and plead, as it could have done. He turned the creature' head to find the vein in the side of its neck, and quickly injected the retrovirus, stepping back out of its reach at once, in case the chains did not hold.

The transformation began almost at once, and the hybrid's screams… so loud he doubted there would be any Wraith aboard the Hive that had not heard them. Skin twitched and bubbled; paled under the cascading rush of the reactive DNA, fingernails blackened and lengthened to a point. Facial plates formed and reformed, pronouncing the already present ancillary organs beside the hybrid's nose. Pigment faded from the creature's hair, and the flecks of gold in its pale eyes blossomed like a kind of plant opening to the sun, before the eyes themselves twisted and reformed.

Todd felt a flush of elation. Had that truly been the key, after all this time, merely the introduction of a stronger DNA?

Elation rapidly became anger. "Not again," he snarled.

The creature's hair became suddenly lank and began to fall from a scalp that was becoming bulbous, bug like. The skin of the transforming hybrid's shoulders and arms became blackened… hardened into a semi-chitinous shell. The pointed teeth blackened and began to crumble, and the creature's tongue split – became short pincers which extended from its distended mouth.

The creature put back its head, and let out a high pitched, pained, but pitiful cry, and thrust its now bulbous right hand, extended to the ends of the reach of the chain, straining toward Todd. Its feeding slit wept a colourless fluid.

Angered beyond belief, Todd turned and swept out of the laboratory, knocking aside the drones in the corridor in his haste to reach the object of his fury.

**

"You said the key was to use stronger Wraith DNA!"

Michael looked up, and then stood as quickly as he could, as soon as he saw the anger on the scientist's face. He took several deep breaths to control the sudden irregular pounding in his heart.

"I merely questioned what Wraith had provided your template for—"

"Do not play games with me!" the scientist roared as he stepped within the chamber as soon as the bars had spiralled aside. "I used DNA from the Queen."

"Let me guess," Michael paled, and backed up – not from the scientist, but from the knowledge that he had once again failed, even using the strongest DNA aboard the Hive. It did not bode well for his future. "The Iratus DNA overwhelmed the Wraith characteristics as soon as the initial transformation was complete."

"You knew it would," the scientist accused, coming to a halt in front of him.

"I did not think you such a fool," Michael snarled, unable to help himself.

The scientist lashed out, catching him square in the chest, dislodging several of his painfully broken ribs. He flew the short distance to collide with the wall behind. Pain erupted in his shoulder at the impact, and he could not help but cry out.

As he crumpled to the floor, the scientist crouched in front of him, painfully twisting his fingers into his blackened shoulder. Michael cried out again as the needle of agony raced along his nerves to boil his every sensation in pain.

"Why did the Iratus DNA begin to subsume the newly restored Wraith DNA?" the scientist demanded. "Why did it stop?"

"No!" Michael wailed through gritted teeth, and raised his arm in defence.

The scientist caught his hand, took his already broken fingers into his hand and squeezed, hard. New waves of agony rushed through Michael, steeling his breath, filling him with nausea that he could not release.

"You _will_ tell me what I want to know," the scientist insisted, staring into his eyes, and once more bent his fingers backwards.

**

"Colonel Sheppard," Varnerin said almost brightly, and turned away from examining his newly installed equipment. "How do you like my new office?"

"Very…" Sheppard looked around. To him it looked very little like he imagined a psychologist's office should, especially not the full operating couch to the rear of the room. "…homely," he finished.

Varnerin watched him carefully. He could feel the man's eyes all but stripping him of every scrap of his humanity. In that moment Sheppard felt he could more easily stand to be in the room with a dozen Wraith Queens than this one man.

"So, Colonel," Varnerin said at last. "Shall we sit?"

Sheppard shrugged, but did move to perch on the edge of one of the seats.

"So," Sheppard said.

"Before we begin, Colonel, I'd like to apologise," Varnerin said. "We got off to rather a… bad start, I'm afraid. You were right. I did overstep the mark where Major Lorne was concerned."

"You won't hear an argument about that from me," Sheppard answered.

"Of course," Varnerin answered. "So… where do we begin?"

"You're the psychologist," Sheppard said, lazily, "_you_ tell _me_. Aren't you supposed to ask me… how long it's been that I wanted to sleep with my mother, or something?"

Varnerin laughed, it was a cold sound.

"Let's talk about the Wraith, shall we, John?" he said. "They seem to be at the centre of all this… of your meeting with the Athosians, the alliance with the Hoffans, the Genii… the creation of Michael…"

"What's your point? The Wraith are to the Pegasus galaxy what the… Goa'uld or the Ori are to the Milk Way." he said.

"You're saying that all this was inevitable?" Varnerin asked.

"I'm saying," Sheppard sighed. What _was_ he trying to say? "The Wraith were here before we arrived. Before us, they were at war with the Ancients... the Ancients created weapons that they hoped would destroy them. They failed… the people of the Pegasus galaxy continued to suffer."

He shrugged, becoming aware that he was rambling.

"Go on," Varnerin said. "I'm interested to see how your version of the story unfolds."

"Story?" Sheppard said, "Varnerin, sooner or later, you're going to realise that this is no story. People's lives, Professor, hang in the balance every day of our being here; every action we take here changes someone's life."

"For the better?"

"Not always," Sheppard said. "But we do our best… with the tools we're given."

"Tools?" Varnerin said. "Interesting way of putting things."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't mean anything, Colonel. What do _you_ mean? This is _your_ psyche evaluation after all." Varnerin said.

Sheppard shook his head, "Mmm mmm," he said. "Not biting."

"You think I'm trying to trick you?" Varnerin said. "Trying to get you to… admit to something that might get you into trouble?"

"Frankly, I don't know what you're trying to do," Sheppard said. "I don't even know what you're doing here, with your… dodgy methods and your… suspicious looking equipment, and—"

"_Unscheduled off world activation._"

"Banks, this is Sheppard," breathing a sigh of relief, and not missing the expression of annoyance in Varnerin's eyes, on his otherwise impassive face, Sheppard keyed his mic and called in to the control room, to find out what was going on. "What have we got?"

"_We have an IDC, Sir,_" she said and then, sounding surprised, added, "_It's Teyla._"

"Thank God," he breathed. "Let her in, Banks. I'm on my way." Then he turned and gave Varnerin a sarcastically apologetic look. "It's been real nice talking to you, Professor. Maybe we can catch up again in a while."

"Count on it, Colonel Sheppard," Varnerin answered coldly. "We were in the middle of something, after all."

**

Vega glanced across the chamber, to where Hanna was standing, painstakingly braiding the Queen's long white hair. She stood waiting to be noticed; to be summoned. It did not take long. She first felt the familiar pressure that usually came before the commanding touch. This time was no exception. She was summoned forward, to help with the braiding.

"I am told his work is close to completion," the Queen purred, turning her eyes to look Vega's way. "Tell me…"

_=tell me= =tell me= =tell me=_

"…what did you see?"

"My Queen?" she asked slowly, feigning confusion.

"Of his experiments… while you were in his presence. You must have seen something?" The Queen tilted her head, waiting.

"Truly, My Queen, I am not the one to ask," she said hurriedly, "Yes, I… I… I saw… things. I—"

"Then _tell me_!" the Queen roared, rising suddenly from her throne and rounding on Vega.

Vega stumbled backwards, almost tripping down the stairs. But for the Queen's sudden vice-like grip in her mind, grabbing her muscles, and pulling her closer, to land on her knees at her feet, she would have fallen.

"I would," she stammered, terrified, as the Queen grabbed her by the throat, the sharp blades drawing beads of blood in neat, straight lines along her neck. "But I don't understand. I can't read Wraith characters, and his science is too advanced for my knowledge to understand the images alone."

Every word was the truth, and it was this that saved her as she felt the crushing presence of the Queen's mind in hers, pushing deeper. She filled her mind with the image from the microscope, tensing in concentration to try and keep the image there, the image and nothing else.

Suddenly the Queen roared in frustration, and released her. She tumbled in a heap in front of her.

"Then go," the Queen growled, "bring him to me that he might explain _himself_, and hurry, before my patience is lost with the both of you, and I decide to give you to another of my faithful – my Hive Commander perhaps, as your desires suggest!"

"Yes, My Queen," she whispered tearfully, and all but ran from the Queen's chamber.

Long before she stopped running, she realised that she was hopelessly lost, and completely out of breath. Her pace slowed, her legs buckled beneath her and she sank to her knees.

Weeks of every horror she had suffered at the hands of the Wraith welled up, overwhelming, maddening… and for a moment she could not help but feel the pressure in the back of her throat that was the wailing scream she fought to keep inside.

_Get a grip_. She told herself. _Get out. You don't have to be the victim here_!

She took a deep breath, crisis management training coming to the fore; concentrated on her breathing, the sound of her heartbeat… slow it down – Think.

"All right, Alicia, what do you need?" she asked herself.

"A way out of here."

Another deep breath.

"A ship."

And another.

"The Darts… find the Darts."

**

Keller sighed as she walked back into the health laboratory off from the Infirmary. She had so much work to do and others trying to dictate where her priorities should be placed.

As a matter of time, she knew her own priorities. Curing Lorne, finding a way to save Carson, those were her priorities, not finding some… cryptic clues hidden inside an amino acid chain. Then there were the hundreds of people denied access to her medics, who needed remedial care until she could find some way to neutralise this damned disease… which would of course be much easier with Beckett's help, and so the cycle began again.

In defiant frustration, she picked up one of the sample containers from the people on M5T-325, and took out one of the slides. Metaphorically thumbing her nose at Woolsey and the IOA she put the slide under the microscope and set the computer to run a complete analysis, while she prepared to carefully study the images to come on the screen one by one.

She frowned as the first of the images resolved itself, line by line, onto the monitor, and hit the button on the keyboard to pause the screen.

"This can't be right," she said out loud, and walked the few paces to the microscope, to take off the slide and look at the label, thinking she had somehow put the sample she had created earlier into the wrong container.

Her frown deepened, the slide was in fact from a patient from M5T-325, but that meant… Her chest suddenly contracted, her breathing caught and her stomach did a flip. She would have to compare the two, just to be certain, but... the amino acid found in the blood of the victim she was studying bore a frightening similarity to what she remembered of the appearance of the chain that Todd had given to her.

"But that means…" she quickly pulled up the file containing the image of the chain she had engineered, based on the data the Wraith had provided and began a point by point comparison.

"Oh. My God," she said softly as the comparison completed, wondering how in the world she could have missed it in the first place.

With a trembling hand she keyed her headset. "Colonel Sheppard, this is Doctor Keller, please respond."

"_What you got, Doc_?" his cheery voice came back.

"Could you come to my lab? I have something I think I should show you."

**

It was only oh-five thirty, and already Sheppard was having a bad day. After the brief respite from tension in the form of the breakthrough Doctor Keller had revealed to him the night before, he'd awoken to a bitter argument from Woolsey, and his pit bull, Varnerin.

_"Colonel Sheppard, I really don't think it's a wise or a smart idea for her to go straight back out on active duty after… all that." Woolsey said, looking over Sheppard's roster one more time._

_"All that?" Sheppard asked, raising his eyebrow. "Woolsey, she did 'all that' in order to regain the memories she lost so that she can satisfy you naysayers that nothing funky happened while she was with Michael."_

_"But that's just my point," Woolsey said, and Sheppard's heart began to sink still further, remembering his somewhat heated discussion with Teyla after Halling had asked him to speak to her. "Has she?"_

_"What?" He frowned in confusion._

_"Submitted herself for debriefing?" Woolsey clarified._

_"That old, broken record _again_?" he asked, sighing._

_"Colonel," Varnerin put in, "I'm sure I don't need to remind you that it's standard military procedure for—"_

_"Don't try and quote the rule book at me, Prof." Sheppard rounded on the man._

_"I'd be more than happy to speak with her," Varnerin told him, almost lightly._

_"I'll bet you would," Sheppard hissed. "Taser in one hand, cup of scopolamine in the other."_

_"Colonel," Woolsey warned, "I won't have you making those kinds of accusations—"_

_"Accusations?" Sheppard rounded on Woolsey now, pointing behind him as he spoke, "He damn well admitted to using the taser on Lorne."_

_"That's as may be, but—"_

_"Look, bottom line," Sheppard said. "It's my risk to take. Who I assign to my team, for which missions, is a military decision and that falls under my jurisdiction."_

_"That old, broken record again," Woolsey said, sarcastically echoing his words of earlier. "I would have thought that, after the last time, you'd have exercised more caution. She—"_

_"Is on my team," he said. "End of discussion."_

"For what it's worth," Woolsey said as he joined the teams preparing for departure in the Gate Room, "I still think this is a bad idea."

Sheppard looked over at him, but was prevented from answering by Teyla's arrival.

She had overheard what Woolsey said, because she added, "So do I, Colonel. I have some very grave concerns about the remit of this mission."

"We'll be all right," he said nonchalantly, giving Woolsey the kind of look that was meant to wither him to silence. "Get yourself kitted up."

But she followed him, pulling on the utility vest as she came, "No, Colonel, I do not think we will. Not this time."

"We will," he said, "this is nothing. Piece of cake. All right, people, listen up."

The general milling around of the marines in the Gate Room stopped and, to a man, they turned to face him. One or two looked past him, to the woman he could feel glowering at his shoulder. He gave them pointed looks to fix the expressions on their faces before he fixed them for them – last thing he needed was for Teyla to feel… not trusted, unwelcome.

"This is a straightforward evac. We go in… neutralise the enemy – find the survivors in the bunkers, and get them out."

"What about the Wraith, sir?" one of the young marines asked.

"We'll have plenty of warning about the Wraith," Sheppard said, half glancing behind him. "There'll be nothing to worry about."

"I disagree," Teyla said softly, and he sighed, wishing she hadn't spoken, but knowing she was not about to stop. "This kind of behaviour is atypical of any of the Wraith we have so far encountered."

"Which is what helps to make this mission a piece of cake," he argued. "If the Wraith are getting overcautious, sending their worshippers to do their job for them—"

"Men we can deal with, right?" another of the marines said.

"And by the time they get word to the Wraith they serve, or the Wraith realise what's going on," Sheppard said reassuringly, "we'll be long gone."

"And if you're wrong?" she asked.

"I'm not wrong, Teyla," he told her with an earnest look. Then he looked up to the control room. "Banks – dial it!"

A light touch on his arm as the dialling sequence started almost made him jump. He looked down to see Teyla looking up at him, frowning.

"Colonel Sheppard, may I have a word?" She glanced to the side of the Gate Room, some way away from the others.

He sighed, almost as if he knew what was coming, but walked that way with her, none the less.

"Look," he said as they stopped walking, "I know what you're going to say and—"

"I doubt that you do, Colonel," she said. "Is there a reason that you are ignoring, or dismissing everything that I say?"

"No, that's exactly what I thought you were going to ask," She gave him a look, and then he said, "Well, okay, more or less."

"So?" she pressed.

"Teyla, listen," he sighed, "You can't expect to just walk in exactly where you left off. You've been through a lot. You have to give people time to… settle a little… get used to having you around again."

"John, this isn't _about_ whether or not I've been here," she said earnestly, "my objections are based on my _knowledge_ and my experience of Wraith behaviour."

"I know that," he said.

"And yet still you dismiss what I'm saying?" she asked.

"No one is dismissing anything," he told her, though he knew that he had been trying to do so. "I heard what you're saying, and I trust your judgement and that you'll tell me what I need to know."

"Then I am telling you that you are making a mistake," she said harshly, "we are likely walking into a trap."

Before he could say another word, she walked away to finish equipping herself. He watched as Ronon came to her side, and tried not to listen to her conversation with the big Satedan. Instead he gave the order to move out. Still, he could not help but overhear.

"Is something wrong?" Ronon asked her.

"No," she snapped, "Nothing at all. We are fine, apparently."

She walked away quickly, entering the event horizon even as Ronon exchanged a confused and slightly hurt look with Sheppard.

"Something I said?" he asked.

"Something _I_ said," Sheppard corrected.

**

The moment she stepped from the event horizon onto the surface of the planet, she knew that she had been right to worry. Every sense was immediately on the alert, the presence of Wraith rushing through her blood and bones, sending every nerve screaming in warning.

She looked around, raising her weapon and turning first one way, and then the other.

She jumped as the gate disengaged behind her, and again when Ronon put his hand onto her shoulder. "Teyla?"

"There are Wraith here," she growled.

Ronon frowned. "Where? Nearby?"

"I feel them very strongly," she said, and could not help but glare over at Sheppard.

"Stay sharp, people," Sheppard said. "We may have Wraith nearby."

He carefully set off along the road that Warsh had told him led to the settlement. She followed more slowly, certain they should not leave the relative safety of the Gate's clearing. Her feelings grew stronger with each step.

Something was terribly wrong.

**

In spite of the terrible expression on Teyla's face, the road remained empty, as did the surrounding fields and copses of trees and up ahead he could begin to make out the buildings of the settlement.

"Easy, tiger," he said, and grabbed an overeager young marine by the strap. "Obs first. Always."

"But, Colonel, the place is empty," the marine said. "No sign of anyone."

"That's what worries me," Sheppard said, glancing over, first at Ronon, then at Teyla, just as she spoke.

"There is something very wrong here," she said, shivering.

"Ronon?" Sheppard said, nodding at the ground.

Ronon shook his head, "Way too confused. Too many tracks."

"Spread out," he ordered quietly, as they reached the outskirts of the settlement. "Search the houses. Be careful."

"The time is long past for being careful," Teyla said suddenly, darkly, "Colonel Sheppard… Run!"

This time he did not argue, as one after another the doors of the buildings around them began to open, a single Wraith commander in each doorway, each holding in their hands two halves of what looked like a chemical flare. He seriously doubted that was what they were.

As the Alpha Team, and their supporting marines, scrambled away from the village, away from the houses, the Wraith activated their devices, bringing the two halves together to release the energy, catching the straggling marines in the ever expanding circle of force that rippled outwards.

"Move, move!" Sheppard ordered, but not all of the marines were as fortunate as those leading the withdrawal. They crumpled to the ground. As the others ran wildly out into the open, Sheppard heard the familiar, and unwelcome buzzing sounds of several Wraith Darts.

His suspicions were confirmed when, a moment after, Ronon cried out, "Dart!" and pointed out the recognizable, dark shape taking to the sky from behind the nearby woodland.

"Damn it!" he yelled, "Take cover!"

"There is no time," Teyla cried. "We have to leave – now!"

He turned his head to face the direction in which she was pointing. Dominating the sky overhead and heading down toward the wide, open space between the settlement and the far mountains was the huge bulk of a Wraith Hive ship.

"I won't leave those marines behind!" Sheppard yelled at her, over the increasing sound of the approaching Darts and the descending Hive.

"They have already gone!" she answered, pointing at the trio of Darts that had just finished a low sweep over the village.

"Incoming!" a marine yelled, pointing at a trio of Darts headed along the road.

"Scatter!" Teyla answered as loudly as she could, "Do not give them a single target for their culling beams."

Even as they scattered, the Darts too, as if they anticipated the reaction, spread out from their formation and each began to fly an erratic flight plan, their beams sweeping beneath them.

**

Too late she spotted the danger, and turning, moved to throw herself across the path; intending to throw all of her weight into her diving tackle. She needed to send her Satedan friend harmlessly out of the path of the culling beam that swept relentlessly toward him.

"Ronon," she yelled as she flew at him.

"Teyla," Ronon yelled in return, "Teyla, no!"

He had seen what she had not until he called his warning. To reach him, she would have to pass directly into the culling beam of a second Dart.

A dark shape hit her, hard, knocking the air out of her lungs even before she hit the ground.

Sheppard wrapped his arms around her as he hit Teyla, taking her feet out from under her, and then tensed every muscle in his body to bring her rolling over the top of him to carry them both out of the path of the culling beam.

"Let me _go_!" she struggled with him. "Ronon is—"

"Ronon's gone," Sheppard said as he started to pull her, struggling to her feet. "We need to regroup – get to the Gate before the Wraith cut us off, and then we come back with reinforcements to get him and the others out."

**

"I'm not entirely certain, but I'd wager that your human fighters cannot be dispatched while the carrier is in hyperspace either," Todd said softly, coming up on the niche in which Vega had hidden herself.

"How did you—?" she asked, her voice barely audible as she peeked at him through the gap.

"When you did not send me to her, the Queen summoned me herself," he said in mild irritation.

"Oh God," she moaned, imagining the horrors awaiting her if the Queen should have her dragged back into her presence.

"I told her you had likely gotten lost… again," he said. "Now, come out of there before you draw attention to yourself… to us both."

She almost refused. After all, she'd sworn to herself that she would have nothing more to do with him, but then… he'd gone out of his way to find her; had lied to the Queen to cover for her attempted escape, and it wasn't exactly hard to put the pieces together and assume that her being in the Dart bay, trying to climb her way to one of the Darts meant it was more than likely that she was trying to escape. She took a huge breath and began to squeeze herself out of the niche again.

As soon as she was part way out, she felt Todd's hand close like a clamp around her elbow and pull her to his side.

"What possessed you to try and run, Alicia?" he demanded softly.

"How did you find—"

"You think this ship does not have internal sensors?" he growled at her and then shook her slightly. "Answer me."

"I got scared," she looked up at him, her tone and expression pleading. "She went… poking around in my head; trying to get me to tell her about your experiment. I tried… I tried to think of nothing but the image I'd seen on your computer screen but… but now she thinks…" she broke off, shaking her head, unable to even think the words, let alone to say them, the image of Hanna, cut… bitten… bruised, barely able to stand, too fresh in her mind.

"She thinks _what_?" Todd caught her other arm, forcing her to face him, fixing her with the urgency in his gaze.

"I can't," she cried, looking away. She raised her hands, pushing at him a little, but he was immovable.

"Tell me," he shook her, letting go with one hand to cup her chin and force her to look at him. The expression on his face, all that had come before, gathered in the panic that had lodged in her chest.

"She-thinks-I-want-her-to-give-me-to-the-Hive-Commander!" she all but screamed at him.

"Hmmm," he growled. "Does she indeed?"

Without a further word, and without letting go of her, he began striking quickly toward one of the corridors leading out of the Dart bay.

"Where are we going?" she asked him, almost having to run to keep up with him.

"To settle this once and for all," he answered, neither stopping to explain, nor even slowing his pace.

"What do you mean?" she asked, even more fearful. "Where are we going?"

"To the bridge," he said.

"No!" she cried, and tried to dig her heels into the deck beneath her feet, struggling against the resolute grip he had on her elbow. "Please, Todd, I don't— I can't—"

"If you wish to survive," he said darkly, "you will do as I tell you."

**

Alarms sounded as the gate began to dial from outside Atlantis. Woolsey hurried to the control room as Banks was activating the shield against possible intruders.

"IDC?" he asked. Banks shook her head, "Anything?"

He chewed tensely on his thumbnail as her hands flew over the keys of the computer in front of her, and over the Ancient technology as well.

"No, I—" she stopped, "Wait, there's a faint—"

"_Atlantis, this is Sheppard,_" his voice was urgent, but more than that, there was almost a hint of panic in his voice. "_Lower the shield; standby security detail – we're coming in hot!_"

Banks looked at him for authorisation, and he hesitated. The force of something striking the shield made him jump, and he hurried behind Banks to look at the screen, even as the security teams she'd summoned hurried to line the Gate Room.

_"Atlantis—! "_

"Lower the shield," he ordered, and started to run down the stairs to the floor of the Gate Room.

Marines in hand to hand combat with Wraith Warriors began to all but fall through the event horizon into the Gate Room.

"My God!" Woolsey exclaimed, and flinched aside as a blast of energy came through the Gate to slam into the steps behind him, a shower of sparks biting at his heels.

Bursts of gunfire echoed around the Gate Room as the security teams tried to take down the invading Wraith, they made a staccato accompaniment to the growling baritone threat of the deadly creatures.

Somewhere, a man screamed, and as Woolsey watched, a Wraith Commander with one of the marines of the security detail in a tight headlock snarled viciously, and began to feed on him. The Wraith visibly healed as the marine in his grasp withered to a desiccated husk.

"Shut it down!" Sheppard's voice cut across the noise and confusion in the Gate Room, and Woolsey watched as Teyla rushed past the Colonel to virtually fly at the Wraith Commander, pulling a second marine out of his grasp and landing sufficient solid strikes against the Wraith Commander to make him stagger backwards.

**

"Hold your fire," Teyla cried as the heat of a bullet grazed the side of her arm. "We must learn what he knows!"

Still the overeager, more likely terrified, security officer kept shooting.

"She said, _hold your fire_!" Sheppard's voice repeated her command.

Her attention was focussed on the Wraith before her, who grinned hungrily at her and lashed out with hands into which he had flicked knives. Her arms were a blur as she blocked each attempted strike, and ducked backwards away from those that slipped through the arc of her defence.

"Teyla!" Sheppard called and, from the corner of her eye, she saw something dark and narrow heading her way. She spun aside from the Wraith attack and caught the nightstick that the colonel had thrown to her, before completing the turn and bringing her newly acquired weapon down against the Wraith's shoulder.

He responded with a sudden thrust from which she had to twist aside to avoid being cut, which brought her within his reach. She brought the baton hard against the Wraith's abdomen and her elbow hard against the middle of his chest, and then rolled around him, hooking her leg between his.

Even as he fell, he lashed out at her with the knives, but she blocked with the nightstick, before following the Wraith down, to land with her full weight against his chest pinning him to the ground with the action, and placing her foot heavily on the wrist of his feeding hand.

"Stop!" she commanded, glaring down at the Wraith, feeling, more than seeing, Colonel Sheppard come to the side of the supine Wraith, his handgun pointing at the creature's head.

"I'd do as she says," he said with a verbal shrug, "if I were you."

"Nothing you can do or say will make me cooperate with you," the Wraith snarled, struggling against Teyla's restraint and completely ignoring the gun pointed at his face. "I _will_ feed on you."

Breathing in deeply she closed her eyes…

**

"Teyla, no!" Sheppard said as he saw her eyes begin to roll backwards in her head. He shivered when the breath she released came from her throat as more like a growl, more Wraithlike than he had ever heard in _all_ the times she had tried this.

"What is she—" Woolsey said, evidently not at all catching on.

Sheppard opened his mouth to answer, but the Wraith suddenly gave a spasm, apparently in pain, and barely a second later, Teyla began to speak.

"You will tell me what I wish to know," she said, her voice growling, almost two-toned, chilling Sheppard even more, between that and her barely contained fury, "or I will crush you. I will take you from this place and lock you in the deepest hole you can imagine, alone… I will keep you there until you beg for forgiveness, until you beg for me to hear. Your. Tale. And when you are at your weakest, burning with the need to feed, I will force on you a survivor of the plague and will ensure that my doctors prolong the agony of your death."

"Easy, Teyla," Sheppard held up his hand to stop the security detail from closing in on the three of them.

"Or you can tell me now… and your death will be swift," she said, tilting her head to the side.

"Atlantis…" the Wraith hissed, following the attitude of her head with his own. "The Elder seeks this place, and will reward any Hive that delivers those from the City to her."

"Oh crap!" Sheppard exclaimed.

"She. Will. Fail," Teyla whispered, and before Sheppard could stop her, she pulled the knife from her belt and savagely thrust the blade up through the Wraith's jaw and into his brain – killing him instantly.

"Get the bodies out of here," she said, still angry as she got to her feet, "They are all of them fitted with subspace tracking devices. I saw it in his mind."

She began to move toward the corridor leading further into the city. Sheppard hurried after her.

"Teyla, wait," he called as he caught her arm. "What the hell was all _that_?"

She snatched her arm from his grasp and turned to face him. "Why did you not listen to the warning I gave to you!"

"Now just a minute," he frowned, "don't you try and put all this on me."

"Why?" she snapped at him. "The responsibility _is_ yours. If you had listened to me, then none of this would have happened."

"It wasn't that I didn't listen," he started, but she did not let him get any further.

"No, John, perhaps you are right, perhaps that is not the issue. Perhaps it is a matter of trust." she said angrily.

"All right," he confessed. "Maybe I do have a few problems with trust right now, but after some of the things you said to me when I came to visit with you, are you surprised?"

"Because I have a _conscience_ you do not trust me?" she questioned loudly.

Aware that they were being watched, and listened to, he took her by the arm and none to gently pulled her out onto one of the balconies. As soon as he let go of her arm, she slapped him, hard, across the face.

The slap itself, though painful, did not hurt so much as the realisation that for her own good, he really couldn't tread gently with her any more. There were things she needed to hear, of which she needed to be reminded, no matter how hard they were going to be for her to hear.

"I understand that things have been tough for you, Teyla, I do," he started, "and because of that I've held back on… certain things, but you _really_ need to know the kind of… person you're dealing with when it comes to Michael."

"Oh, believe me, Colonel, I know full well—"

"No, I don't think you do," he said, cutting her off. "Maybe you don't _get_ what his intentions are regarding the people of this galaxy, and but for the fact that we worked our _asses_ off to find you – he would have killed you without a second thought just as soon as he had your baby."

"You are wrong, you—"

"Am I?" he said angrily, hurting from the look of pain he saw cross her face. "Go check my log reports if you don't believe me. Coming back from a rendezvous with our Genii contacts I got throw into the future and I can tell you _exactly_ what would have happened if I hadn't made it back – if we hadn't tried to find you. You would be dead, killed for your baby. Michael would be out there, indiscriminately killing Wraith _and_ human alike, he doesn't care! All he cares about is that he subjugates the entire galaxy to settle his sense of hurt pri—"

She cut him off with another slap.

"You can slap me all you want, Teyla," he said, glaring down at her, "but it doesn't change the fact that you stood there, bare faced, in front of me, among your own people who have been taken and subjected to his regime of terror, and defended that mass-murdering son-of-a-bitch!"

**

He slowed their steps, and from the sounds ahead Vega knew they must be nearing the bridge. She couldn't help but move a little closer to him as she set eyes on the Wraith inhabiting the nerve centre of the Hive.

Under normal circumstances she might have been interested to see what the bridge of a Hive looked like, but she was just too deathly afraid that the Commander might have been told she was his for the taking. The thought made no sense, nor the fear, other than the Queen had said that this was what she had seen of Vega's desires.

As Todd brought them to a halt in the centre of the bridge, facing the display of Wraith characters that scrolled across a viewing screen, the Commander turned his gaze their way and Vega had to fight the urge to duck behind Todd, caught in the effects of her irrational terrors.

Instead, Todd brought her to stand in front of him, close against him, and wrapped his right arm across her belly to rest against her left hip, resting his other hand atop her shoulder, where he almost idly began a gentle stroking of her neck with his thumb.

She bit her lip, and snatched in a breath as warmth started to spread through her; as Todd's touch against her skin, against the bruise still left from their previous… encounter, rekindled all the doubts and curious wonderings, not only in her mind, but through her body also.

"What do you want?" The Hive Commander snapped aloud when Todd obviously did not answer his mental inquiry.

"I merely wished to view our progress first hand," he said, and behind her, Vega felt him tilt his head. "I have been… almost exclusively working on our Queen's instructions, and needed to know when we would arrive at our destination."

"And you bring a _human _to our bridge?" the Commander said harshly, stepping down from his console and approaching menacingly.

"I will bring my concubine where I wish," Todd answered smoothly, and drew Vega even closer for a moment.

His use of the word made Vega's heart and stomach change places. To hear the open secret, so plainly spoken between two commanders among the Wraith, and in front of other sub-commanders, was disturbing enough, but combined with the idle caress that had become almost a clear defiance of the Hive Commander, it left her trembling with the uncertainly of her own feelings, let alone of his. She swallowed, and knowing she should do something to display the mutual involvement in this supposed tryst, ran her own hand down the leather of the arm that surrounded her, and onto the back of his right hand, to run her fingers along his.

"After all," Todd continued, shifting his hand beneath hers, guided beneath her touch to slowly climb her body. "Our Queen has given her the freedom of the Hive… unless of course…" she had to stifle a small moan as she felt the warmth of Todd's hand at the underside of her breast, and felt him breathe out slowly, before he eased her away from him. She found herself standing beside the two Wraith who now faced each other. "…you wish to challenge me."

She stood on trembling limbs, looking between Todd and the Hive Commander. The rest of the bridge faded into darkness around them as the tension of the atmosphere between the two Wraith crowded in on her, tunnelled her vision. A buzzing started in her ears, and she began to feel lightheaded… a little sick.

Todd let out a long, low growl as he stared the Hive Commander down, until he stepped back.

"That won't be necessary," the Commander said, beginning to return to his place at the console. "Bring your plaything where you wish… just be sure that she does not get in the way."

He turned his head to snarl at her for a moment, before falling once more into unity with the ship, effectively dismissing the both of them. Others on the bridge, however, whose work was less involved, continued to stare.

Finally, after watching the scrolling display on the monitor for what seemed to Vega to be a hot and uncomfortable age, Todd held out his hand to her.

"Come, my dear, I grow weary of this," he said, and reached past her hand as she moved to take his, to close his fingers around her wrist, and to guide her from the bridge.

**

At Sheppard's words, Teyla felt hurt and anger in equal measure flooding in, to leave her trembling with it all.

"What I said—" she started.

"What you said, Teyla, was an insult to everything you've ever stood for. The words you said could just as easily come from Lorne's mouth, or… hell, even from Michael's own mouth… and you wonder why people think you've been brainwashed or… or turned or something!"

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" she demanded hotly.

"Open you _eyes, _Teyla. Michael has murdered and enslaved hundreds of thousands of people. Granted, what we did to him was wrong. The way we used him, unhumanitarian, but it was _his_ choice to do as he's done, and to _continue_ to do as he is." She opened her mouth to speak, but Sheppard continued, "And maybe now he doesn't have a choice otherwise – can't exactly turn himself in, he knows we'd kill him. _I_ would kill him, happily, because in spite of the fact that things have changed from what I know of the possible future, too much _hasn't_ changed and _isn't_ changing. Michael still poses a clear and present danger to the entire galaxy. I, for one, am not prepared to see him succeed!"

Every word he spoke was like a blow to her face.

"And what of the Wraith?" she asked harshly, "What of _their_ part in this future you've seen?"

"The Wraith have always _been_ here, Teyla, their presence is beside the point right now," he said. "If it weren't for this war with Michael, sure, there'd be cullings, and the Wraith would still be taking people out every once in a while, like they've always done, but _nothing_, nothing like this."

"They are not beside the point, John, and that you cannot see that is proof that you are naïve and ignorant," she stepped closer to him, to grip his arm, trying very hard not to get stuck in the circular argument that this was in danger of becoming. There _was_ no clear solution that she could see, no way to be _pro_active, instead of _re_active to all that was occurring in the galaxy.

"This lecture is getting old, Teyla," he warned.

"Then try and _listen_ to what I am saying instead of what you _think_ I am saying," she implored him. "We – no… _you_ created Michael in attempting to find a way to neutralise the threat that the Wraith are in this galaxy. How can they be beside the point?"

"I already said that I think the way we used Michael was wrong," Sheppard said, his tone rising in frustration.

"You _say_ it but you do not _feel_ it. You do not _understand_ it." she told him.

"I understand that even if the Wraith were to roll over and play dead _right_ now, it wouldn't change one _second_ of what Michael has planned. He'll kill the Wraith, move on to the humans and those that aren't weakened by the Hoffan drug, he'll turn into hybrids and—"

"Your _future_, I suppose," she said coldly.

"No, Teyla, yours," he snapped, "unless you wake up and see what's really going on here. The SGC and IOA would pull us all out of Atlantis _long_ before that became an eventuality."

"You can't know _any_ of this," she let go of his arm and paced away from him. "To base such fears on what might come to pass just because of something you've seen and have now altered?"

"Teyla!" he roared her name, making her jump, "have you even heard a _word_ of anything I've said?"

"I hear you admitting to wrongdoing on the one hand, and happily premeditating the death of another. I hear you disregarding a dangerous force in this galaxy. I hear you yet again disregarding your own responsibility for what has happened thus far and—"

"You _really_ need to figure out whose side you're on here," Sheppard said, turning her to face him again, and pointing at her harshly. "Did you _hear_ yourself in there? The way you threatened that Wraith…? I mean, where the hell did _that_ come from?"

"I said what needed to be said to get him to talk," she snarled at him.

"I'd say you went well above and beyond the call," Sheppard said sarcastically.

"I am only trying to do what is _right_, John… with what is left to me," she implored him to understand. "Sometimes, to do that, we must walk in the darkness… and it is not comfortable, and it is not fair and it is often impossible, but—"

"And what about your son?" he cut in.

"—what kind of a person would I be if I did not even try?"

He talked over her, clearly not heeding her question, "That maniac that you're so quick to defend has taken your son, is probably doing all kinds of experiments on him, manipulating his DNA, if he'd even do that, considering—"

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" Teyla looked at the suddenly horrified look on Sheppard's face, the way he half turned away, as though he had said something he shouldn't, "John?"

"Look, just…talk to Keller." He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, and she looked at him, fury in her eyes. "I _saw_ the tapes, Teyla. I know what Michael said to me last time we fought, and—"

"I will _find_ my son," she said harshly, "and anything else to do with him is of _no_ concern to you." She trembled as she stepped toward him, hurting from the doubts that had been pointed aimed her way and the barbs of mistrust they showed, before she continued. "Colonel Sheppard, I have heard what you have said, have borne your accusations and your questions, but _no more_. Our people are out there in the hands of the _Wraith,_ and Michael or no Michael, _they_ will always be a threat."

**

On the balcony above, Varnerin leaned against the stone sill and frowned in suspicion. Sheppard was among the most vociferous in defending the Athosian woman, and yet, in private, or so they thought, he all but accused her of the very thing of which she was most often accused. Perhaps Major Hollick had been right all along… and if Keller was… withholding evidence…

**

As they entered the laboratory, Todd closed the alcove on the hybrid. Vega was glad of that. She didn't need the sarcasm.

"Now you will have no trouble with the Hive Commander," Todd's voice was soft, and he turned to the workbench, accessing the computer to bring up the latest of his simulation results.

Vega watched him for a time. She ran her eyes over his broad shoulders, the precision in the movement of his hands and fingers, and almost felt them again moving over her neck.

"No," she said quietly, letting out a tremulous breath, "But I'm going to have trouble with you, aren't I?"

Todd turned back to her, frowning in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, Todd," she glanced at him, but found that she could only fix her eyes on his shoulder, couldn't meet his gaze. "I mean… you didn't exactly have to… go out of your way to—" She stopped talking as he started to move and finally looked up further than the top of his shoulders.

He passed close to her on his way to the door and raised his hand to the panel before turning to face her again. She jumped as he closed the laboratory door, and in spite of herself, backed away as he came back to her, until the small of her back came to rest against the workbench.

"Are you telling me that you have… changed your mind, Alicia?"

"I'm telling you that…" she raised her hands between them, not exactly to fend him off, though he was standing terribly close, and her heart sounded like a military tattoo inside of her. Her fingers came to rest against the warm leather of his coat, beside the buckle at his chest. "Well, what you did on the bridge…"

He slipped his hands along the undersides of her forearms, his fingernails scraping lightly over her skin. She shivered.

"You didn't seem to object," he said, his tone serious, though she thought perhaps she detected a hint of something almost… light-hearted… playful. "If I overstepped the mark…"

"What?" She blinked, "No… no… it's… fine… I…"

She realised suddenly that her fingers were playing with the buckle, and went to move her hands away, but his fingers closed gently around her upper arms, preventing them from moving.

"Then?" he tilted his head in query.

"Well, I'm just saying… you didn't have to do that. You could have gotten yourself into a lot of trouble and—"

"And?"

"After the little stunt we pulled the other day," she tugged a little on the buckle. She hadn't meant to unfasten it, but the leather was supple, and slipped right away from the metal at her tug. She took a sudden breath. To try and cover the way she was feeling, the trembling quickness of her breath, she said, "It's not as if there's much… mystery left between us; all that much to explore."

"Oh," Todd said lightly, easing her away from the workbench and turning her in his almost soft grasp, to hold her as he had been on the bridge of the Hive ship. "I think you'll find that we could have plenty left to explore…" Once again, of themselves, her fingers found their way to cover his hand, to slide over his pale digits. She leaned her head back beside the opened buckle, breathing in small snatches and closing her eyes.

"If that was what you wanted…" he finished softly.

**

Varnerin nodded to the marine he passed in the corridor on the way to sick bay, and fixed a smile onto his face for the orderlies, in case he should meet any. At this time in the day – the graveyard shift – he did not think there would be any there. On call, perhaps, but unless the infirmary had any gravely ill patients, and since Lorne was now locked in the brig, and Hollick had been released to his own quarters, there were not, they would not be present.

He was not mistaken… and smiled to find the infirmary empty, and his path to Keller's office clear. The door was locked, of course, but with Zelenka's tablet, which the scientist had so conveniently left in Varnerin's office while he was still working on connecting his equipment, that would be little obstacle.

He quickly attached the data cable into the place of one of the crystals, and operated the tablet to unlock, and open the door, then carefully turned on only the table lamp with which to light the room as he searched.

It did not take him long to find what he sought. It was pushed to the back of the desk drawer in an unmarked file, half buried under the rest of the debris in the drawer. People were always so predictable. Quickly he took out the contents of the file and replaced it with paper from the printer, before putting it back where he had found it, and then satisfied turned out the light, and left the room.

Very soon he would know the truth of Teyla Emmagan.


	4. Act 4

**Act 4**

He sat with his knees drawn up and his head back against the wall. His eyes were closed, as though he was sleeping.

Sleeping… Vega sighed, bone weary herself, the thought of sleep was appealing, but she dare not return to her own quarters, to rest, until she had some answers and loathe as she was to get involved with anything to do with him – he was the one most likely to give her those answers, but Michael was unpredictable at best.

The drone guard keyed the switch to open the door, carried in the pitcher of steaming hot water and set it on the shelf just inside the cell, before standing aside to allow her to enter.

Vega carried in her own supplies – salves and antiseptics that she had not, in defiance of the Queen's orders, brought with her the last time. Throughout all the movement, Michael gave no sign of awareness.

She set down the tray beside the pitcher and cautiously lowered herself to sit on the side of the cot, before spreading a towel of sorts across her lap.

"I thought you said you would not return."

She managed not to jump too much as Michael spoke. His voice was dull, lifeless, almost broken, and she couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy in spite of everything she'd suffered at his hands, and since, because of him.

"Yeah, well," she said softly, "I changed my mind. Woman's prerogative, you know."

"You want something," he correctly surmised.

"Only to talk," she said.

He offered no resistance as she took hold of his wrist and drew his hand away from where he cradled it against his chest defensively.

"I'll try not to hurt you," she told him.

Michael's limp frame suddenly began to shake with laughter. There was no humour in it. It was tired, a little lost and the quality of it soon changed, the shaking became harder, the sound more breathy. It took her a moment to realise his distress.

"Michael—" she started.

"I thought it beyond the Lanteans to show anything other than loathing for the thing they created, and yet, here you are, moved to sympathy in our mutual abandonment." His voice was thick with emotion and heavy with sarcasm.

"Yeah?" Belying the mirrored sarcasm in her words, she very carefully began to unwrap the bindings from his fingers. "Well, what can I say? I never could stand to see a grown man cry."

He hissed in pain as she revealed the swollen fingers. She bit back the apology that automatically came to her lips.

"You're forgetting one thing though," she added, watching his face and his still closed eyes. "All that was before my time. What they did to you—"

"Answer me this then." He finally turned his head and opened his eyes. She couldn't help wincing, cringing at the bloodied mess in his left eye. He took no notice of her empathetic reaction. "If you and I had met under any other circumstances than these, you would have shown me mercy? Sympathy? Tried to understand my plight?"

Finally she had unwrapped his fingers and reached for the bowl from the tray she had carried that contained the iced water. "This is going to hurt. I'm sorry."

"You must reduce the swelling," he said dispassionately. "I understand."

Even so he failed to keep the small moan of pain inside as she slowly lowered his hand into the water.

"You haven't answered my question," he said, when he had caught his breath.

"To be honest, I'm not sure, because I don't really know that much about it," she said, worrying over the way what little colour he had had drained away from his face.

"I am certain it's well documented in Atlantis' database," he told her, sounding as if he couldn't bear to go through it again. "I know that each time I have been there I…" he trailed off with a sigh.

"Keep your hand in the water," she told him. "Let me see if I can do something about that eye,"

"There is nothing you can do," he told her. "The one you serve as master—"

"Todd did this?"

Michael began to laugh again, bitterly.

"What's funny?" She frowned at him.

"Under the circumstances, I should count myself lucky to have been given the name _Michael_." He sighed, composing himself to the same blank exhaustion. "What is it that you want?"

"You… said this was once your Hive," she told him, feeling that it was time to be candid. "I need to… understand it; to know my place; to know what things mean."

"Your place is to serve. I would have thought that obvious."

"No, that much I know, just—"

"What are you really asking, Captain Vega?"

"Why warn me?"

"I warned you of something?"

"Don't start the mind games again, Michael," she said. "You know you did. You warned me that Hanna would somehow—"

"Hanna?"

"The Queen's other handmaiden," she said. "You warned me that she'd somehow get me sent to the Hive Commander and—"

"Yet again you think in one dimension." Michael sighed. "My warning, my… demonstration was of the danger the _Queen_ poses to you. How she can take the very thoughts from your mind – even those you do not realise you had…"

_"Do you think that because you are both her handmaidens… both used… abused… that you can trust her; that she is your friend – someone whom you should not hate?"_

_-hate- -hate- -hate-_

_The word echoed softly in her mind as she saw a mental image of Hanna's face._

_"Do you believe that just because she is your fellow handmaiden, both beleaguered in service to the Queen, that you should not try to rise above her; usurp her position with the Hive Commander?"_

_-with the Hive Commander- -the Hive Commander- -Hive Commander-_

_"Do you think she would not do the same; take your precious scientist from you; approach the Queen to suggest… go to him?"_

_-approach the Queen- -the Queen- -Queen-_

_-Go to him- -to him- -him-_

_Words and visions continued to echo around in confusion inside her head, and she barely heard the words he was speaking._

"…and use it to serve her purpose."

"It was you!" She looked at him in horror. "You planted the suggestion in my mind. You—"

"I did," he said.

"Because of you, I—"

"No," he snapped. "Because of _you_, because you are incapable of shutting out the Queen, and she more than likely already knows everything you want to keep from her."

She stopped and, as she looked at him and realised he was telling the truth, her anger faded.

"What does she want?" she asked suddenly. The question that was weighing her down, frightening her, suddenly burst out of her far less casually than she had intended.

Michael let out a throaty little half chuckle. "Now we come to it."

"Well, do you blame me?" she asked emotionally. "You said this was your Hive. You've probably known her longer than anyone else here. Why the hell does she keep us around? Okay, we pamper her, fetch and carry, but half the time she pushes us into the arms of her commanders who are just as likely to kill us as… anything else." She swallowed hard at the look he gave her; somewhere between wry amusement and, she thought, sorrowful recollection. "She obviously wants something from _you_ because like you said, if she didn't you'd already be dead, but… Vain as she is, I find it hard to believe she just… keeps us around for the mere… indulgence of having on demand comfort. Hedonistic she might be, but she's not _that_ vacuous."

"To understand that," he answered darkly, "you must first understand the evolution of the Wraith."

**

The Hive Commander did not need the nudge he felt from the ship's internal sensors to inform him of the human woman's presence on his bridge.

He looked up, half expecting to see the scientist from the allied Hive with his little plaything in tow. Instead he saw the one sent to him by his Queen in reward for his successes with the Abomination. She stood just inside the door, hands folded in front of her, her eyes downcast; obedient and obviously waiting to speak with him.

He relinquished the control station to the Hive Sub-commander and went to take her roughly by the arm and remove her to a place where they could speak with relative privacy. She knew better than to speak to him until he had.

He brought her a little way into the corridor before he barked, "Speak."

"You wished to know of the other's movements; anything unusual." she said demurely.

"What has she done?" he snarled.

"She did not return from the scientist's laboratory immediately, and when she did leave, she went instead to the Renegade's cell," she told him.

"Find out why," he ordered. "I do not trust her. I do not trust either of them."

**

With the light dimmed on all but the area in which he worked, Todd's concentration was absolute. The information he had forced out of the Abomination had provided him with an avenue to explore that might prove to be the solution to the cessation of the transformation at the required point in the progress of the retrovirus.

Of course, moving the remnant insect DNA to an inert section of the sequence was a delicate manipulation, much less encouraging the nucleotide bonds to hold in the newly reformed DNA. Then to splice the entire sequence into the most virulent part of the viral DNA – he could not help but feel a degree of admiration for the Abomination at already having successfully performed such genetic science with what must at first have been limited facilities.

He was concerned, however. Wraith DNA, by its very nature, was tenacious and part of that persistence was due to the Iratus DNA, the very heart of which he was attempting to suppress. He sensed he had little time in which to complete the work, and even less in which to test it. He worried that all he would be left with would be another monumental failure.

He completed the first stage of the manipulation and sat back on his stool, breathing out a long, slow sigh. Supposing he was successful – what then? What purpose did the redemption of an individual among such a collective serve? What were the Queen's intentions?

There was little doubt in his mind that this exquisitely beautiful, deadly creature he'd come to serve was an Elder among Wraith Queens, but could she truly be one of The Four, as the Abomination had implied?

Wraith folklore named those Queens long gone, lost to internal treachery during the war with the Ancients of Atlantis, by ungrateful descendants, who saw only threat from their primal progenitors. Why _had_ Wraith attempted to destroy those that had brought them life?

Another thought occurred to him. He had no notion of whence it came, or why in that moment he should begin to wonder on it, but it was a thought that profoundly disturbed him. He could not afford the distraction this concubine had become, and yet, with this new line of reasoning, neither could he afford not to follow the thought to its conclusion. Leaving the computer to work on the simulation following the initial stages of manipulation of the retrovirus, he reached for the vial of Vega's blood he had in stasis, and began to run an exhaustive genetic analysis, which he could then compare with that of Wraith.

**

"Approach," she said, almost softly. Her mood was calm, at peace almost, and a great anticipation had lodged in her heart.

As he came closer, as the light fell on his features, still blackened and bruised from the persuasive correction he had forced on himself, a frown crossed her face and she turned her head Vega's way.

The handmaiden looked terrified and backed away as the Queen rose.

"My Queen…" The Renegade's voice was soft, reverent and, her anger diverted in those welcome and familiar tones, she allowed herself to be distracted.

"Speak," she instructed.

"Do not chastise your handmaiden for failure to carry out your wishes. She tended me well," he said, "but your scientist took it on himself to… punish _me _for his inability to achieve your wishes."

She descended the steps slowly, one at a time, and as she reached the last one, though she did not need to, she took his offered hand to steady herself.

Another thrill went through her at the gesture that, even _with_ the pain of his injured shoulder, he still offered to her that safety.

"Such selflessness," she said.

_=selflessness= =selflessness= =selflessness=_

"For your Hive, my Queen,"

_-my Queen- -my Queen- -my Queen-_

She chuckled lightly and released her hand from his as she invited him to rise.

He did, slowly, though he kept his eyes downcast.

"So, you have admitted your errors and come to me in true contrition," she said and brushed her fingertips across the back of his neck. If it were a lie, by this, she would know; knew of old his true reaction to such a gesture. Such a thing could not be faked, as words or the semblance of submission could be pretended.

"I was a fool, my Queen," he said, gasping softly as he shivered under her touch, "who did not know his own heart."

She tilted her head, entering lightly into communion with him and drinking contentedly of his desire.

**

"You are in need of greater healing than my handmaiden can provide."

Michael took a deep breath and swallowed as the Queen came to stand in front of him again. He caught the wrist of her right hand as she reached toward his chest.

"I deserve to suffer, my Queen," he told her sorrowfully, "for the wrong I have done to you."

"Valiant," she purred and lowered her hand.

Michael let out the breath he had been holding, and closed his eyes in tired resignation.

"You know what it is I ask of you?" she said.

"I have always known," he said softly.

This time he did not resist her touch as the palm of her hand ran over his chest. His heart pounded beneath her touch.

"And yet you allowed me to believe that you did not," she said.

"Not you, my Queen," he said, his voice shaking. "Others of our Hive would never understand."

"And you are… willing?"

"My Queen, I have—" he began, but stopped as he felt the flush of anger and hatred from behind him.

"What is it?" the Queen snapped, and the Hive Commander, on her invitation, marched to the chamber's centre and nodded to her curtly.

Michael tensed. Whatever message the Hive Commander brought was ill timed. He had been moments from the execution of his plan. All of his pain, his suffering and striving were pointless without it.

"My Queen," The Hive Commander said, "I thought you would want to know – we have located the human woman you seek, and I have adjusted the course of the Hive to bring us there directly."

Michael's eyes narrowed and his stomach twisted in the worst moment of apprehension that he had ever felt. Incautiously he reached out mentally, pushing the inquiry into the Queen's mind and ripping away the answer he feared.

_The presence of another consciousness, not Wraith, but revered as a companion… perhaps even equal to the devotion for a Queen, assaulted her as she reached for him… searched for him amid the minds present in the battle her subordinates fought._

_She followed the feeling of the undeniably female mind… pushing through the layers of protection with which he had surrounded her, weakened by her curiosity, and finding her, wrapped her in a crushing grasp._

_She was human… but with a mind, and strength that could have belonged to a Wraith… diminutive, with brown hair, brown eyes… her lustrous skin of burnished gold. She was exquisite… beautiful…_

"No!" he roared, and ignoring the blinding flash of pain, he lashed out at the Queen, catching a crushing blow against her throat. She fell away, gasping for air.

Instinctively he turned full circle, dropping into a crouch and sweeping his foot to catch the Hive Commander's ankle, taking it out from under him.

As the Commander went down, Michael did not miss that he had drawn a barbed and jagged blade from the sheath at his waist, nor the fact that the Hive Commander had rolled away, putting distance between them so that he could stand.

The chamber flooded with the deep red of the Queen's fury, so dark that it was almost impossible to see more than sickeningly swirling shadows that were magnified to twice their height. But for the protective outrage, equal in intensity to that of the Queen's, Michael could have been confused by it, lost in it, but his anger kept him focussed. It sharpened his senses and gave him greater strength to bear the concussive pain that travelled down his arm into his broken fingers as he blocked the Hive Commander's knife attack with his forearm.

**

Pulled by the desperate grasp Hanna had on her arm, Vega was rushed to the Queen's side. The Queen still had not risen, still struggled for breath and Vega could already see the blackening bruise and the swelling that was constricting her airway.

"Help me move her away from the steps," she said to Hanna, "We have to get her flat. We—"

"My Queen," Hanna half whispered, almost wept, her voice urgent, "please…"

The Queen turned her head to look in Hanna's direction and then, to Vega's horror, suddenly thrust her feeding hand against Hanna's chest and started to feed.

Vega recoiled, her stomach clenching and a cold sweat beaded on her forehead as she watched Hanna aging before her eyes as she willingly allowed the Queen to feed, to heal herself.

The Queen did not feed for long, however, and Hanna fell backwards to lie gasping like a grounded fish while the Queen rose, wildly furious. In the half-light she appeared as some primal goddess of vengeance. Almost before the Queen found her feet she flew across the chamber toward where Michael and the Hive Commander still battled.

**

Against a healthy Wraith, buoyed by the strength of his rage, Michael managed, barely, to old his own, but as he felt the renewed and crushing presence of the Queen, he knew that his luck had all but expired.

By what little chance remained, he felt the Queen's first strike against him before it connected and ducked under the wide swing. The Hive Commander was not so lucky. The blades on her fingers struck him across his cheek, sending him reeling backwards.

Michael used the confusion to try and spin aside, through he knew he had no place to go. He was under no illusion. It was likely he would die there.

**

It resembled some kind of macabre dance. The two Wraith and the hybrid twisting around each other, striking and defending.

Vega couldn't begin to imagine the pain Michael must have been in, trying to fight with a dislocated shoulder and broken fingers, not to mention the other injuries. Even as she watched him with reluctantly growing admiration, she saw he was slowing; struggling more and more with each block he made, each blow.

Finally, unbalanced, he stumbled to one knee. Before he could rise, the Hive Commander moved behind him, grabbed him by the hair and brought his knife to press against his throat.

"Stop!"

_=stop= =stop= =stop=_

All movement in the Queen's chamber ceased.

Very slowly, after what seemed an age, after casting a long and evil glare over the Hive Commander and Michael, the Queen stalked towards them.

"You _lied_ to me!" Her voice trembled and, for a moment, Vega felt that she was truly hurt. "All this time—"

"No," Michael gasped, "every word I have spoken to you is the truth. I have always known of your plans, even when you tried to keep them from me; when even my loyalty meant so little to you, far less, it seems, than now."

"You—" The Hive Commander pulled on Michael's hair and tightened his grip on the knife he held pressed to his throat, but the Queen raised her hand, stopping him from pressing the blade any closer.

She laughed coldly for a moment, "Oh, so clever," she said, reaching out to caress Michael's upturned face.

"I know that I will die here," he told her, equally as cold and unyielding to her caress, but Vega's attention was caught by movement in the doorway behind the trio.

"So certain of it?" the Queen said, sarcastically.

"When I die," Michael answered, his voice the embodiment of pure hatred, "it will be in the knowledge that this Hive, _you_ and all of your alliances die with me!"

"I would not be too certain… if I were you," she said, and with a wave of her hand, summoned Todd forward.

"You sent for me, my Queen," Todd asked, coming to her side.

"The time for experimentation is over," she snapped. "You will administer your retrovirus to him now."

"My Queen," Todd looked profoundly uncomfortable as he addressed her, "the latest formula is untested, I cannot guarantee—"

"Never mind your guarantees," she snarled, turning in Todd's direction so quickly that he flinched and took a step back.

Vega gasped, her heart and stomach changed places as she worried what the Queen would do to him, but he had already abased himself, dropping to one knee and bowing his head, and it seemed to halt her ire.

"It will take a while to decant, my Queen," he said.

"Send for me when you are ready to proceed." She turned again to the Hive Commander, who had relinquished the struggling Michael into the hands of two drone guards. "Inform me when we have achieved a stable orbit of the world where I may find this… _pretender_ to my throne. In the meantime, heal yourself, and then see to the restoration of your concubine." Then, she rounded on Vega, who was trembling in relief of the reprieve Todd had won for himself. "You – attend me!"

Vega glanced at Todd, who met her eyes and gave a slight nod of encouragement. As Vega moved to her side, the drone guards dragged the still struggling hybrid from the chamber, and the Hive Commander came to take the weakened handmaiden by the arm and all but pull her out of the Queen's presence.

**

Sheppard whistled to get the attention of the many teams in the Gate room. As it fell silent he took a deep breath and began the mission briefing.

"We know we're heading into a hostile territory. We know the Wraith are there – they landed their Hive and they have our people. The second we can dial the Gate, get a stable lock, we send through the stun pulse grenades. We follow them through firing. The grenades will only take out the few Wraith in close proximity to the Gate and there _will_ be others nearby." he said. He took a look at the team leaders. They were not green by any stretch of the imagination. Many had been in the Pegasus galaxy for years, but he suspected that few of them had been anywhere close to a Wraith Hive ship before. "Doctors McKay and Zelenka will be accompanying Alpha and Charlie teams aboard the Hive to guide us to our people; deal with any technology we might encounter. The rest of you, your job will be to keep the Wraith off our tails, keep the way out, open… and keep the Gate from falling back into Wraith hands. If we don't manage even one of those things, we're screwed."

He looked around, taking a moment to try and meet the eyes of every marine and team member. "I won't pretend this is not going to be dangerous, that maybe some of us won't make it back in one piece, but I promise you this," he took a breath. "No one is left behind. It's why we're going out there after all, to get our people back. With a little vigilance, we can make sure we don't need a repeat performance."

"Colonel Sheppard, we have a positive signal. We're dialling!" Even as Banks spoke, the lights on the Gate began to fall into place, dialling the address, and giving them a way out to get their people.

**

The rattle of the P90 in her hands was jarring. After so long Teyla felt she had become unaccustomed to it. The fact did little to affect her aim or efficiency, however, as, one after another, her Wraith targets fell under the onslaught.

A wave of unexpected dizziness swept over her and she was forced to take shelter behind the trunk of a tree, breathing hard until she could force it to pass. It was nothing tangible, but a terrible feeling lodged in her belly and refused to be shifted.

Quickly she keyed her headset, "Colonel Sheppard, this is Teyla, please respond."

"_Go ahead,_" he said over the sound of gunfire and Wraith blaster alike.

"I know we did not expect surprise to be on our side, but they are aware of us; of our purpose. They are expecting us," she said.

"_Understood,_" he answered, "_fall back to the Gate. I'll call for you if—_"

_=you cannot hide= =hide= =hide=_

"Negative, Colonel," she said, gasping softly in the hope that he would not hear. "I am coming with you."

"_Teyla?_"

"This Hive may not be the only one we encounter today," she said. "We must hurry."

**

"Easy." Ronon crouched and pushed his hand against the marine's shoulder as the man woke. "Try not to move too much, you'll probably feel rough for a while."

"Where're Fernandez and Bishop?" the marine asked, taking Ronon's advice and doing little more than look around for the women.

"They took them," Ronon answered, frowning, "Harrow as well,"

"They separated the men and women?" the marine, Captain Osborne, started to sit up. "That's not like the Wraith. I'm surprised they don't have us all in their cosy little cocoons, keeping us nice and fresh, ready for when they feel like a midnight snack."

Ronon growled in agreement, then added, "There's something going on here."

"Any way we can get out of here?" Osborne started to get up, and Ronon steadied him until he could stand by himself.

He looked around again in spite of the fact that he'd already searched their cell from top to bottom, not once, but several times, and shook his head sadly. "Seems like someone's tipped these guys off about me. They searched me pretty well."

"Why a holding cell?" Osborne asked quietly, as the others also started coming round. "Don't they normally store humans in those… pod things?"

"Another reason that I'm sure there's something going on," Ronon confirmed, "Unless they're so full that—"

He stopped when Osborne gave him a sour look. "They'll come, right?"

"Sheppard and the others? Yeah, they'll come." Ronon said, and began to help the other waking marines.

**

It had been a long fight even to get close to the Hive. Sheppard began to feel it would have been wiser to have used the Jumpers, but even cloaked, there was no guarantee of safety. With the conflicts between humans and Wraith escalating – and the fact that Intel suggested that the Elder Hive was looking for Atlantis – it was only a matter of time before the versatile crafts would have to be used to ensure the safety of the city.

Turning slightly, he signalled to the members of his team. There were two Wraith warriors, guarding the entrance to the Hive. They would circle around to the flanks before approaching the ship, keeping them out of the view of the Wraith for as long as they could. Charlie and Delta teams would be reaching their positions at the opposite side of the Hive, ready to confuse the issue even more. All that remained was Bravo – in essence a key component in the planned strike against the Hive, because Teyla would attack from within.

They had formulated their plan as they regrouped in the small wood a couple of clicks to the west. It had been a heated discussion, but in the end he had been unable to argue. It did not change that he had a very bad feeling about the execution of the plan.

_"Teyla, I don't like it. It's dangerous – reckless," Sheppard said._

_"You expect to be able to just walk onto a guarded Hive with no resistance?" she countered. "How does it help Ronon and the others if we are all captured and killed?"_

_"I'm not comfortable with you… you know…" he twitched awkwardly, "… doing that stuff when we've no way of getting you out of it if anything goes wrong."_

_"Nothing will go wrong, John," she said. "And if I can create a diversion from _inside_ the Hive – convince them that we have already gotten inside and are attacking their Queen…"_

_"See," he sighed, "there's another thing. It _really_ isn't a good idea for you to go messing around inside the Queen's head. You _know_ what happened the last time."_

_"The last time, I saved your life, and then you saved the life of my son. This time we are both here to save our people," she said firmly. "I am stronger now. I know what I am doing."_

_"And that's another—"_

_"John, there is no time for this. If we do not get our people out by the time the other Hive gets here—"_

_"Other Hive?" he frowned, "When did we—"_

_"I told you," she said, "on the radio. I said this might not be the only Hive we have to face."_

_"That makes it an even worse idea," he all but implored her. "What if the two Queens both start—"_

_"The longer we stand here arguing, the more likely that becomes," she snapped at him. "No, John, if you wish to get Ronon and the others out, if you wish for them to have a chance, then you must let me _do_ this."_

He sighed. He hadn't been able to argue because he knew she was right. Their best hope of getting in, getting Ronon and the others out, was if some kind of internal troubles kept the Wraith of the Hive busy.

Reluctantly he keyed his headset. "Teyla, this is Sheppard, respond."

"_Yes, John,_" she said, sounding strangely calm, almost resigned. "_I hear you._"

"We're in position," he said. "Whenever you're ready."

**

Captain Osborne nudged Ronon's foot as the Wraith Commander and several drones approached the holding cell. Then he went to calm the rest of the marines, who were becoming disturbed by the approach of the Wraith.

Ronon climbed to his feet, moving to put himself between the men huddled at the back of the cell, and the doorway as it spiralled open. The Wraith Commander hissed at him and Ronon snarled in return. It earned him a backhanded slap to his face, but he remained resolute, undeterred.

"Which of you is the leader here?" The Wraith Commander demanded of the men behind Ronon. After only a moment, Osborne stepped forward. Ronon tried to catch his arm but the marine shook off the contact.

"I am," Osborne said, standing just a little straighter beside the big Satedan.

"Take him," the Wraith Commander ordered the drones behind him and they pushed forward to grab the marine by the arms and drag him toward the doorway. "Bring the other as well."

Ronon felt the one remaining drone prod at his back with the long staff it carried, until he followed the others.

The Hive was typical of every other he had seen, confusing in the twists and turns of the corridors and chambers – too many to remember – until at last they were brought to a rounded chamber, likely at the heart of the Hive.

"My Queen," the Commander called, and it was not until that moment that Ronon saw her, as she unwound herself from her place on the throne. Her robes, in swirling blacks and purples, blended with the organic material of the seat, and her dark hair, clasped away from her face, hung almost in ringlets about her shoulders, she had been curled like a huge serpent into the back of her resting place, almost as though she were sleeping, her face turned away from the light. Her eyes were red and bloodshot.

"Bring them," she said, and her voice was a low rumble around the chamber.

Ronon and Osborne were propelled into the chamber, the drones remaining on the threshold as if afraid to enter. The Commander gave obeisance, before he said, "These two have named themselves as the leaders of these humans, by their words and deeds."

"Excellent," she hissed, stalking toward them even as her Commander backed away. She tilted her head first one way and then the other, looking between Ronon and his companion.

When the Queen looked his way, Ronon snarled at her. Not usually affected by the fear most people suffered when faced with the Wraith, Ronon felt unusually unsettled. He could only imagine what Osborne must be feeling.

"You, human," she commanded, stretching out her hand toward Osborne, "come."

"There's nothing I can help you with," Osborne told her and each word betrayed the effort he was making not to obey her compulsion.

Ronon almost stepped forward to help the other man, but from behind, the Commander's hand, equipped with protective finger-guards that dug into his flesh. The Wraith held him in place.

The Queen wrapped her left arm around Osborne's neck, tilting his head back at an un-natural angle across her upper arm, and then swayed her head again until she faced Ronon.

"Now," she said, "I know how loyal you Lanteans are…" As she spoke in an almost mesmeric, sing-song voice, she raised her right hand, her feeding hand, and almost delicately unfastened the marine's clothing, before stroking the backs of her fingers against his flesh. Osborne stifled a gasp of fear as she touched him. "…so, you will tell me… what I wish to know… or I will… _feed on him._"

She snarled the last three words, a guttural, almost demonic sound and turned her hand so quickly that her palm was pressed against Osborne's chest before the man even had a chance to draw breath to fuel the scream of terror he let out.

As if to prove her point she threw back her head, snarling and hissing as she drew a taste of the marine's life force.

"I'll _kill_ you," Ronon snarled and struggled with the Commander until the Queen pulled her hand away and growled wordlessly at Ronon for a second, before she suddenly began to laugh.

**

Sitting cross-legged in the centre of a protective circle of marines, Teyla closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. It was a ritual with which she was becoming all too familiar, and it did not take her long to find the thread, the specific telepathic resonance that led her to the mind of the Hive Queen.

She gasped softly… almost pained, and let out a small moan. The Queen was hungry… under a geas, an interdiction against feeding more than enough to keep her alive, given to her by a stronger Queen. It was Teyla's good fortune. It weakened the Wraith Queen.

…_your mind is weak… …weak… …weak…_

The Queen did not respond, focussed as she was on subduing the man she held, filling him with the terror she savoured as she had taken what little sustenance she was allowed, but Teyla felt the flicker of her concern, knew that the Queen had felt her presence.

…_I know that you can hear me… …hear me… …hear me…_

_Who are you?_

As the Queen responded, Teyla's inner vision cleared and she saw as though she inhabited some inner chamber of the Wraith Queen's mind. The Queen spun around to face her… and let out a long, slow serpentine hiss.

_You! You are the one she seeks._

There was surprise in the mental voice, in the recognition she received from the Queen, and Teyla pushed back with all the blatant confidence that she could, taking a deep breath to fuel her mind.

…_I am the one… …the one… …the one…_

_You will not escape m—_

She took another breath, making claws of her fingers in the dirt of the ground and pushed the images she spoke onto the Queen's mind, thrust against her with emotions of fear and despair, dredged from some deep, dark place inside of her.

…_the one that will bring darkness upon you… …darkness upon you… …upon you… …the one that will destroy your Hive around you… …around you… …you… …the one to bring fear to Wraith……to Wraith……Wraith… …to you, until you beg for the mercy of death… …mercy of death… …death…_

_You do not have the strength._

The Queen snarled at her sarcastically, truly believing Teyla did not have the strength to carry out the threats she made. Teyla knew that she had to prove that she could do as she said she would, or all would be lost.

…_feel me… …feel… …feel…_

Teyla took another deep breath and exhaled a very audible and Wraithlike hiss, unsettling the men around her, pushed the crushing force of her own will against the weakening Wraith Queen.

**

"Greater men than you have tri—" The Queen's taunting and laughter suddenly ceased. Her hand against the marine faltered, and she staggered backwards. "No," she cried, "you cannot!"

Ronon felt the Commander's grip on him fade, and confused he glanced around, trying to work out what was happening. He could see the Wraith was too, judging by the confused expression he saw on the Wraith's face as the Commander moved past him toward the stricken Queen.

"My Queen?" he said, and caught her arm as she stumbled again, releasing the marine.

"Leave me," the Queen cried, flailing, and the Commander backed away. Ronon's confusion increased, though he was sure that something terrible was happening and wondered if perhaps Osborne had been exposed to the Hoffan Virus and the Queen was about to die.

"Get out! Get out of my mind!"

Suddenly Ronon's confusion cleared and with the Queen's frantic, growling command, he knew that it was Teyla, mentally attacking the Queen. He suddenly grinned, and not wasting a moment of the distraction that his friend and team mate provided, he lunged for the Commander, snatching the knife from his belt and with it, grabbing his head with his free hand, he neatly sliced the surprised Wraith's throat, tossing him aside just as the Queen managed to get her hand to her pendant to sound the shrill, warbling Hive alarm.

**

As Sheppard watched, the heads of the drones turned in unison away from watching the approach to the Hive and a second later, the both of them hurried inside, staff weapons leading.

"Nice one, Teyla," he whispered to himself, even as he gave the signal for his men to begin the assault. "All teams, this is Sheppard. We have a go!"

As he led his own team's assault on the entrance to the Hive, he saw the black clad marines of the Atlantis Expedition streaming in toward the ship, some firing as they came.

He couldn't help but grin – they might just pull it off after all.

**

The Elder Queen almost gently caressed Hanna's cheek, newly restored to her former youth, and the girl leaned into the touch as one would to a lover.

"My Queen," she whispered.

Vega shivered, and then jumped as the same words echoed more strongly from the doorway.

"My Queen…" the Hive Commander strode to the middle of the Queen's chamber, and he lowered himself to one knee, his head bowed.

"Speak," she said, though she never once took her eyes from Hanna's face, nor the contrast between her Wraith flesh and the lustrous human skin tones.

"We have left hyperspace, my Queen, and are approaching the planet where we will find the woman… and our subordinate Hive," he said.

The Queen instantly forgot the sudden, Sapphic attentions she was bestowing upon Hanna and waved her away. Vega too was included in the dismissal – even the Hive Commander.

"Leave me," she commanded. "I wish to be alone."

Vega needed no second bidding, and while Hanna slipped, doe eyed, away toward the Hive Commander and his forbidding presence, she hurried away into the shadows until she was sure she could not be seen. She had to know that Todd was all right.

It had nothing to do with the feelings that had flooded her when she was in his arms, or the sensations in her fingertips as she had covered his digits with her own in an almost sensual caress…

_Todd eased her away from the workbench. He turned her in his almost soft grasp, to hold her as he had been on the bridge of the Hive ship, one arm across her waist, the other teasing at the sensitive skin of her neck._

_"I think you'll find that we could have plenty left to explore…" he said. Her fingers found their way to cover his hand, to slide over his pale digits. She leaned her head back beside the opened buckle, breathing in small snatches. She closed her eyes as he finished softly, "If that was what you wanted."_

_"I don't know what I want," she told him, her voice an honest and frightened whisper, but she could not ignore the desire that was stirring in her. "Are you making me feel this way… with your mind, I mean?"_

_"Do I need to?" he purred, drawing her back a little more closely against him, and switched the positions of their hands, so that his larger fingers ran strong caresses against hers, front and back, until his fingernails could scrape lightly against her wrist. "The same… pulse…" his voice sounded right beside her ear, and she had not realised he had leaned down to her. She started, and let out a small gasp, that became a moan as he continued with both his words, and his caresses, "…flows in your veins… as in mine…"_

_"Todd…" she whispered in a rush._

_"No." The word was more like a breath that moved over her, a warm wind that set every nerve jumping and every hair to stand on end. "Not any more."_

_The breath continued, and he allowed her to turn in his arms…_

… She just didn't want to be stuck on the Hive without him.

She forced herself to slow her steps as she saw him pacing his laboratory, but still the words exploded from her.

"You're all right."

He spun around to face her. "Alicia, what are you doing here?"

"She was so angry. I worried that—"

"She has given me a task to do, though… once it is done…" he trailed off, and reached past her to close the laboratory door.

"What could she possibly want?" Vega gripped his arm. "I don't understand. What possible good does it do her restoring Michael to his Wraith self? He clearly hates her. Turning him back into a Wraith isn't going to change that."

"Evolution," he answered.

"What?" She blinked at him in confusion.

"She seeks evolution, for Wraith," he repeated, going on to assert, "The primary concern of any Queen… beyond the protection of her Hive."

"Oh you have _got_ to be kidding me," she said, looking at him in near disgust at what she thought he was saying.

"As you come to know me better, Alicia," he looked at her most earnestly, "you will find that it is only on very rare occasions that I will ever be… _kidding,_ as you so colourfully put it."

"So what the hell do we do?" she asked.

"Do?" he echoed, frowning at her in confusion. "We _do_ as she has bidden us, that is what comm—Wraith males do, and certainly Wraith Worshippers."

"Now just hold on a minute," she protested, "no one said anything about—"

"Whether or not you see yourself in that position is immaterial. She considers you as such and therefore, if you wish to survive here, you will comply with the role." he told her.

"But we can't _stay_ here," she grabbed his other arm this time, as if she would shake some sense into him. He did not move even an inch.

"We?" he questioned.

"Well, you just implied that you didn't know if you'd be kept alive once you're done with this crazy science experiment for her… and I'm certainly not going to hang around if she manages to restore that maniac to Wraith-hood-ness… whatever. Can't see it being all that much of a picnic if—"

"The chances are that the experiment will fail. She did not give me the time to perfect the formula."

"So she'll kill you."

"Likely," he said, almost calm.

"Well then, like I said, we've got to get the hell away from here."

"Where would we go?" he said, and she opened and then closed her mouth, her brain providing her with no answer. "I have told you repeatedly that you should trust me, Alicia Vega. If I cannot give her… Michael," he hesitated on the name, "restored to full Wraith, then I can at least provide her with the promise of her desired evolution."

"Bluff, you mean?"

"Naturally," he said, and she thought she caught a slight, defiant twinkle in his golden eyes.

**

…_you cannot prevail… …cannot prevail… …prevail…_

Teyla continued a deep and circular breathing so that she could maintain the control she had over the Queen, send her stumbling, drunken and clumsy around her chamber. Making her lash out at the drones and commanders that came to try and aid her.

…_your Hive is mine… …is mine… …mine…_

She forced the image of a decaying and destroyed Hive into the mind of the Wraith Queen, felt the answering, primal terror the thought kindled, and pushed even harder.

…_I will take it… destroy it… destroy you……destroy you… …you…_

_=I= =warned= =you=_

Teyla gasped… losing concentration for a moment.

"No!" she cried out, and felt the hand of one of the Marines closing around her wrist. "I'm all right," she gasped, pushing him away, "Let go."

She took another deep and shuddering breath, and forced her mind back into the lesser Queen's mind. She had to see this through and quickly… in spite of knowing that the safest thing to do would be to leave.

**

Sheppard felt the second the atmosphere changed as almost a tangible moment that he could pinpoint.

"Heads up," he said in warning to the marines as they led the former prisoners through the maze of corridors that made up the outer part of the Hive. "McKay, we really could use that information around now."

"I'm trying," McKay snapped back, staring at his hand-held detector. "I'm having trouble locating the energy signature, that's all."

"We're running out of time," Sheppard said, "Don't ask me how I know. I just know."

"There!" McKay snapped as they came to the junction of three corridors. "This way."

Under other circumstances Sheppard would have chuckled at the way the scientist let two marines go ahead of him down the corridor, but the moment the Wraith started firing on them, the chuckle died in his throat, along with the first of the two marines.

"Fall back!" he started to order, but from behind the Wraith came a very welcome and familiar trilling sound, and before another moment passed, the Wraith started dropping to the ground.

"Miss me?" Ronon asked, grinning as the last Wraith fell.

"Ronon," McKay blinked at him. "How did you—"

"They took us to the Queen," Ronon said, as Osborne limped up behind him, carrying weapons for the others. "She started having a…" he pointed to his head and concluded, "Teyla."

Sheppard nodded, but then said, "I've got a feeling she isn't having a… Teyla any more. McKay, a way out of here would be really good around now."

"I'm working on it," he answered, muttering to himself under his breath. "This way!"

"Try again, McKay!" Sheppard said, and suddenly threw himself against the bulkhead wall, bracing himself and firing a stream of bullets down the corridor toward the approaching Wraith.

"There _is_ no other way!" McKay yelped. "That's it!"

"Ah, crap!" Sheppard answered, and with a glance at Ronon, who raised his own weapon and nodded, the two of them led the charge toward the incoming Wraith, firing every step of the way.

**

Even the memory of the pain that she had felt aboard Michael's cruiser the first time she had stumbled on the Elder Queen's mind, did nothing to prepare her for the burning agony that thrust itself like hot needles into her mind. She could not contain the scream it brought from her.

_=now you are mine= =you are mine= =mine=_

Fighting the pain that threatened to break her mind apart, Teyla gathered her strength, of necessity releasing the lesser Queen from her grasp, and pushing in defence against the Elder's attack.

…_your time is coming to an end… …coming to an end… …to an end…_

_=it is you who will end= =you who will end= =you will end=_

The fire spread through her body and limbs, twisting her muscles and contorting her as she fell to the ground.

_=I will break you= =break you= =break you= =gather you to me= =gather you= =gather= =and you will be a plaything for my most trusted drones before you die= =before you die= =you die=_

Teyla wailed at the images thrust into her, the imagined pain of the things the Queen promised coursing through her.

"No!" she screamed aloud the denial and pushed the pain of all of it against the touch of the Elder Queen's mind.

**

Sheppard spun around the turn in the corridor and let off a barrage of gunfire as he crossed to the alcove on the other side. Ronon followed him around the bend, firing and running zigzag along the corridor to take an alcove of his own, avoiding the blasts from the Wraith stunners.

They were almost there. Sheppard could see the exit, and the small group of Wraith that stood between them and the open air.

"Just a few more minutes, Teyla," he whispered, and then jumped as his radio crackled a burst of static in his ear before it resolved into the voice of his Bravo team leader.

"…_I repeat, Teyla's been compromised… please advise._"

"Crap," he snarled, and rolling out of his position, firing into the Wraith, he keyed the mic and answered, "Get to the Gate. Don't wait for us; just… drag her if you have to. Just don't stun her. You do that and we may lose her for good. Just get her to the Gate, dial Atlantis and get the hell out of here. Keller will know what to do."

Already he could hear the presence of Darts in the sky outside the Hive. It could prove to be a very short trip if they didn't manage to avoid them.

Ronon gave a sharp cry, reminding him of the danger they were still in from the Wraith _inside_ the Hive and that worrying about the Darts outside was in fact a little premature.

"Ronon?" he called out in question.

"I'm all right," the Satedan shouted back. "It's just a flesh wound. Let's go… we're clear!"

Sheppard blinked, and looked toward the pile of Wraith bodies in the doorway. It took him only a moment longer to get his feet to cooperate and carry him toward the field outside.

**

Zelenka thought his heart was going to explode and he promised himself that if he got back to Atlantis in one piece he was going to go to the gym every day and get fit enough to easily keep up with the marines of Charlie team.

They had to dodge and weave, and frequently take cover, to avoid the Darts that were flying overhead. That didn't help, but slowly, little by little, he and the team advanced on the Gate.

He heard Teyla before he saw her… and gasped softly at the words that were pouring from her mouth as she struggled with the four marines it was taking to restrain her, the likes of which he had never before heard from the normally genteel Athosian woman's mouth.

He had heard of times before when she had been under the influence of the Wraith, but the reports of it paled by comparison to seeing her spittle flaked lips moving in threats and insults of the worst kind, her eyes rolled back in her head and her body thrashing and twisted as though she were having some kind of seizure.

"Dial the Gate," someone yelled, and one of the marines holding Teyla tried to do so, but the moment the soldier let go of her arm, she lashed out towards the nearest of the others, and caught him a dreadful blow to the side of his face, others already lay wounded or unconscious in the clearing by the gate.

"You," the sight of Teyla's distress spurred his strength and he called out to the marine that dithered beside the DHD. "You hold the girl," he said, "I'll dial."

He all but threw himself at the DHD and keyed the sequence of symbols to dial back to Atlantis.

"Come on, come on…" he murmured, watching the steady red light on his wrist-mounted com device, and impatiently pushed the button to once against send his IDC. From somewhere overhead and a little way behind their position he thought he heard the whine of a Dart coming in, fast. Just as he thought he would need to send his IDC a third time, the light switched from red to green.

"GO!" he yelled at the men holding Teyla, and ran to all but push them through the Gate. The Dart was getting closer. If they didn't hurry, they would not all make it. He held his breath, ready to dive aside if need be, and hang the consequences of the bruises he would have. At least he would be alive and not Wraith fodder.

As he stood with his back to the event horizon, watching in horror the incoming Dart, the last of the marines hooked his arm and pulled him in.

There was a momentary, dizzying rush, before he stumbled backwards into the Gate room.

"Raise the shield!" he yelled, "Now!"

Banks didn't hesitate and, barely a second later, the sound of something hitting the energy shield that protected Atlantis from the ingress of outside enemies, punctuated the sound of Teyla's growling and snarling.

**

The Queen's angry cry could be heard and felt throughout the Hive, and Michael lifted his head from where it rested against his knees and let out a long, slow, trembling breath. The breath became more ragged with each he took, emotion rising to choke him. She had escaped her… and the relief was just too much for him to bear on top of everything else.

Ignoring the molten heat of the pain it caused him he reached up with his right hand to grasp the spiral bars of his cell and drag himself to his feet. Then, exhausted from the effort of everything, he put his head against the bars, and wept.

**

Exhausted, after several long hours of observation, Teyla had finally been allowed to return to her own quarters to rest. She would be permitted no further participation in any missions until the new psychologist had declared her fit for duty – undamaged by her encounter with the Elder Queen. It took her what felt like hours to get herself ready for sleep, but as soon as she slipped into bed she drifted away… to sleep… and to dream…

_"I was wrong, Teyla."_

_Michael's voice was soft and full of regret, and his hand came to rest gently on her shoulder._

_"Michael…" she whispered, and moved to lean backwards against him, but the pressure of his hand gently turned her to face him. She closed her eyes as she turned, not wanting to see him as before, hurt and bloodied before her._

_"Look at me," he said, "please."_

_Slowly she opened her eyes and almost sobbed to see his face, his hybrid features clear of harm._

_"I want you to know," he started, "What I did, to your people… to you—"_

_"Michael, I know…" she meant to reach up and cover his lips with the touch of her fingers, but he caught both her hands in his. "I unders—"_

_"Hear me," he craved, and his eyes implored her to listen._

_"It began in anger, Teyla, out of a desire for vengeance… against the people of Atlantis, who did this to me… against you, for your participation, against the Wraith, for their rejection, but…I could never clear the one truth from my… heart." He swallowed and looked away for a moment before he turned his face back to hers, and she thought she saw the light reflecting from moisture there. "When I first saw you, something in me recognised you… a part of you that I don't think even _you_ know you carry. You—" He looked away again, trembling before he took a breath to compose himself enough to go on. "You are the one person in this universe with the power to—" His voice cracked, and this time he could not go on._

_Slowly he guided her hands, to come to rest against him. One, her right, on his chest, over his heart, which fluttered beneath her touch, the other he guided behind his head until her fingers rested, trembling against the back of his neck. He closed his eyes._

_"Give me solace, Teyla," he appealed in the rush of a whisper, "And if nothing else, do not look unkindly on _all_ of my deeds. Remember that above all else, I would have given you my life, if you had asked it."_

_"Michael?" She frowned, a dreadful ache beginning in the middle of her chest._

_"Teyla…" he murmured, and almost slowly leaned towards her upturned face until their lips almost brushed together…_

She woke sobbing, gasping for breath, desperate for escape from the terrible feeling of grief that had lodged inside of her… irrational. As though she suddenly felt the walls of the city closing in around her she all but threw herself from her bed, and wrapping only a robe around her sleeping clothes ran from her quarters as though the very shadows of the sleeping city were chasing her… taunting her.

Blinded by the tears she could not stop she ran through the corridors of the city, not thinking, nor caring where her steps took her. Up, she ran… pushing past patrolling security guards and tired engineers alike, up through the jumper bay, still trapped by walls that swelled around her, to constrict her, crush her.

The shock of wind that gusted about her, and stole what little breath she still possessed as she burst out of the doorway at the top of the central tower stopped her cold, and she gasped for air, before she screamed in anguish at the twin moons and fell to her knees barely a breath away from the edge.

"WHERE ARE YOU!"

**

"This isn't quite the place I would have liked to conduct the first of our sessions," Varnerin said with more than a hint of sarcasm, "but it will do."

"Leave me alone," she answered him, barely turning her head to acknowledge his presence. "I am not yet ready to talk."

She had no idea how long she had been kneeling there, staring blindly into the wind, but when she focussed her eyes again, one of the moons had long since set, the other was sinking toward the watery horizon.

"That was quite the display," Varnerin said, moving toward her with slow steps. He ignored her request for solitude.

"It is no business of yours," she told him and quickly came to her feet, turning to face him as the menace she felt from him swept over her.

"I wish I could say that I'm sorry to disappoint you in that," Varnerin smiled coldly, "but it's every bit my concern, Teyla."

"And that is why you have been following me, still," she spat, "in spite of Doctor Keller's assurances that all is well; that no Wraith Queen controls me."

"Where is whom?" He ignored her accusation as she suspected he would. She in turn ignored _him. _She had to turn to keep him in view as he stalked toward her, still nearer. She turned until her back was to the open air.

"You know," he said, "it's a curious thing to watch as someone sleeps – as they dream – to try and interpret what they see from the little moans and mumbles they make; to watch as frowns cross their faces and to decide if it is anger or confusion they feel."

"You have been _watching_ me?" she demanded, disgust filling her at the thought of those cold dark eyes invading her rest… or restlessness.

"Your quarters have been under video surveillance for some time," he admitted with a shrug. "I thought you knew that."

"I assumed that had been discontinued as soon as I had spoken with Colonel Sheppard and Mister Woolsey on what I remembered after my meditation was complete," she said hotly.

"You would have thought so, perhaps, yes," Varnerin purred, "but evidently someone made the decision not to do so."

"You told them—" she began, but he interrupted.

"It's understandable, Teyla, when you consider that practically every other word you speak, awake _or_ sleeping, concerns Michael, or calls for him. Of course they would be reluctant to trust you."

"As it is understandable that I speak of him often," she snarled, "that he haunts my dreams. I was his prisoner. He has my son. He—"

"Methinks that lady protesteth too much," Varnerin said, the sarcasm like a blow to her gut. "Michael is not going to harm the boy. You know that. I know that, as does anyone else that's seen the PCRs I have in my office drawer."

"What are you talking about?" She frowned in confusion and took half a step away from him, her heels hard against the edge of the tower.

"Oh come, Teyla," he purred, "why feign innocence any longer. Doctor Keller did the tests herself, prompted by Doctor McKay as I understand."

"Tests?"

"You're trying my patience, woman," Varnerin growled. "I'm no geneticist, but even I can see there's no doubt that the blood in the placental remains proves the filial match of your son's DNA with that of his father: Michael."

"You're insane!" she snapped, but a hollow, sick feeling began to grow in the pit of her stomach. "Kanaan was the father of my son."

"The science proves otherwise," Varnerin said, taking a step closer with a feral grin on his face.

"How dare you!" Teyla said angrily, trembling.

"I dare because it's the truth," he answered. "Is the truth too much for you? After all, you're lying to everyone else, aren't you? Why not lie to yourself?"

"I have told no lies," she spat.

"You're claiming fear for the life of your son when you know full well that, even with all of which he might be capable, Michael isn't going to hurt his own child, now, is he?"

Teyla's heart and stomach changed places. "Kanaan was the father of my son," she growled.

_"No," Kanaan said, gasping, "listen… Don't… don't worry… about— about the… child…"_

_"Sshh," she tried to soothe him, running her fingers through his hair. Her hand shook. "Please, Kanaan, save your strength. Our child—"_

_Gripping her as tightly as his failing strength would allow, he shook his head. "In… time," he took another bubbling breath, "…you… you will come… to realise—"_

"How does it feel, Teyla, to be sent away; not needed any more?" He was relentless. "I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies. At least he didn't kill you, as Colonel Sheppard seemed to think he would."

He took another step forward and, even knowing she had nowhere to go, Teyla backed away. She flailed wildly and felt, deep inside the panic that gripped her, another consuming wave of loss and almost overwhelmed by it, stopped struggling to hold her balance. She slipped then, and would have fallen but for Varnerin's sudden, fierce grip on her arm as he pulled her to safety. Then he turned them both and pushed her against the tower wall.

"The question is," he said as he leaned toward her, "what happens now?"

"Let go of me!" She struggled against him as he stepped closer still.

"I don't think so," he said.

"Let go of me, or I swear—"

"You'll what? Kill me? Leave me in the '_deepest hole I can imagine, alone… keep me there until I beg for forgiveness…'? _Is that what you learned from him, Teyla?"

Still she struggled against his unusually strong grasp. "Let me go!"

"…pillow talk in your most intimate moments?" he pressed on relentlessly. "I've seen the tapes. There's no sense in denying you're—"

The first rays of morning sun broke the horizon, casting an appropriately sickly shadow over Varnerin's face, twisted as it was with an expression of contempt. In the face of it she could no longer remain pinned, and lashed out with the flat of her hand as everything he'd said, every accusation, churned inside of her.

Under the force of the open handed strike he stumbled backwards, winded, and came to his knees where she had first been. He gasped for breath as she peeled herself away from the wall to come and stand over him.

"We are finished here," she said, stepping inward and pulling her hand once more from his grasp. "If you ever come near me again, I _will _kill you. And that is not an idle threat."

"Some day, Teyla, you may have to make good on that promise," he taunted her softly, "Because this issue isn't going away. _I'm_ not going away."

"Then _I_ shall," she told him, and without waiting for his answer this time, she turned and hurried inside, not certain whether to feel more angry, hurt or betrayed.

**

"Anyone sitting here?" McKay asked Keller as he came to find a place to sit and eat his breakfast.

"No, no, I think you're good," she said. "Just getting up, or just going to bed?"

"Just getting breakfast," he answered with a grin. "You?"

"About the same. I've been trying to figure out more about this amino chain that Todd gave us. I mean, I know it's key in something to do with the Hoffan plague, but… I don't know how practical its application would be, I—"

Rodney frowned as Jennifer broke off, until he saw that the shadow that had crossed their table was Teyla. He looked up, intending to smile, but then he saw her face. He frowned instead. She'd been crying, and crying hard by the look of things, and he'd never known Teyla to cry, not for anything.

"Teyla?" he began.

But she was not looking at him, she was looking at Keller. He started to get up.

"Why didn't you say something?" she all but spat the words at the doctor. "At least then _you_ would have been the one to tell me, not some arrogant, gloating—"

"Teyla, what are you talking about?" Keller asked softly. She started to pull out a chair for Teyla.

"Why didn't you tell me about my _son!" _she cried, throwing aside the chair that Jennifer had started to pull out for her. "Michael's DNA!"

"Oh, God," Rodney looked at Teyla's face once more, and then did get up. "Listen, Teyla, it's my fault I—"

"You knew as well?" she rounded on him, accusingly, "And _you_ didn't tell me. Even though you shared captivity with me aboard his ship; even though I fought for your safety with Michael, _this_ is how you repay me?"

"Don't take it out on Rodney, please, Teyla, he came to me with the concerns, yes, but you're right. I _should_ have been the one to tell you about it."

"Teyla," Rodney tried, "it's not as bad as it might seem."

"Not as ba—"

"It wasn't just Mi—" Rodney tried again, but his heart was in his mouth and he doubted she'd listen.

"I trusted you!" she cried, "both of you!"

"You need to stop, and calm down, and listen to me." Jennifer said, and her voice shook with either fear or anger. Rodney couldn't be sure which.

"Who else?" Teyla asked.

"What?" Keller frowned in apparent confusion, although Rodney knew what the Athosian woman was asking.

"Who else did you tell?"

"Look, Teyla," McKay started forwards to put a hand onto her arm. She shook off his touch. "It's not a matter of who else did we tell. I was worried about needing to find you in case anything happened; in case all of that DNA junk floating around in your bloodstream… harmed you in any way. Sheppard and Ronon—"

"Everyone!" Teyla cried and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

"Not everyone," he squeaked.

"Everyone," she said again, "and not one of you said _anything._"

"That's not true," Keller said, putting a hand over Teyla's, trying to get her to let go of him. "I know that Colonel Sheppard told you to speak with me."

"He _should_ have made it clearer _why_ I should speak with you," Teyla said and did let go of him.

"I'm sure he just felt it was more proper coming from Jennifer," McKay said, "Teyla, listen—"

"I cannot," she said, and tears came to her eyes. Rodney tried to reach for her, but she backed away. "The time when I could have listened to counsel from Atlantis is long past. I cannot stay here. Not any more."

**

**Act 5**

Sheppard had spent the better part of the day trying to persuade Teyla that she should stay; that their differences could be worked out, and that they needed her. Perhaps that last part was the truth, but Teyla doubted the rest.

Even though, calmer now, she could understand why he hadn't told her about Michael's involvement with her son, to have discovered the truth as she had was too much for her to bear.

For just a moment, she turned away from the Gate to look around the city one last time. It had been her home for a long time, and to be away from it, and from the friendships—

She swallowed hard, blinking back tears, and Sheppard stepped forward, joking a little, she knew, to try and lighten the atmosphere, he said, "Hey, we have your address, we can always write."

She gave a faint smile, but said sadly, "I do not think so. If we meet again, it will be a long time… to allow the hurt to heal. I fear we need that – both of us."

"Yeah," he said, and nodded, looking at the ceiling.

"Goodbye, John." she said softly, and walked to where Ronon was waiting for her by the Gate, to escort her back to her people.

**

They had walked in near silence from the Stargate to where Halling and some of her people waited on the outskirts of the Athosian village, on yet another home world to them.

Ronon reached for her hand to draw her to a halt a little away from the welcoming party.

"You really meant it," he said sadly, "about not coming back?"

"Ronon, I am sorry," she said softly, "but not for a long time, if ever."

He sighed and looked down trying to think of what he could say to give her comfort. Nothing came to him, and she continued.

"Knowing that people I have called my friends for more than four years could treat me the way I have been treated; could keep something like this from me – it leaves me groundless – with nowhere I can turn for support."

"You could always come to me," he said.

"But you knew as well," she accused gently. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Teyla," Ronon sighed. "It's not that I didn't want to tell you – I just didn't know how."

"You have always known the way to speak with me," she said, looking up at him.

He shook his head. "Not like this, not _about_ this," he said. "Every time I thought about the… experiments he must have done to you; to the baby… how he took something beautiful and pure that you and Kanaan had made and corrupted it with his madness, I just… I just wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands and—"

"Thank you," she interrupted softly.

He blinked at her, "For?"

"At least you do not think that Michael and I—"

"You made that child with Kanaan," he said quietly. "I know you did."

**

_She breathed in deeply of the sweet scent of the Dulusk flower. "Luska Tea?" she asked, "All this time and you still remember?"_

_"Don't make fun of me," Kanaan said softly, starting to turn away, and he looked so hurt that she reached out to stop him; her hand soft and gentle against his cheek. He leaned into the touch. "I made it for __**you**__."_

_She smiled at him and took the bowl he offered, glancing down into the dark liquid… into the reflection of his face in the mirror of its surface. Her breath caught in her chest, the knot of it spiralling down to sit low and deep in her belly._

_"You know… I waited a long time for this," he told her softly, still cupping the wooden bowl she held in his hand, to steady it in hers, that trembled slightly. "I… I'd like to think you—"_

_"Of course… I…" she flushed with embarrassment, a strange feeling in front of him. Oddly out of place. With a breath she took the bowl into both of her hands and sipped at the warm, sweet liquid inside. The sudden enormity of what they were doing caught her breath as she watched him take a sip of his own._

_Without another word he took the bowl from her hands and set them both aside, moving closer._

_"Why… why have you never—" she started, but could not finish. She took several breaths before she began again, "We have been friends since we were children, Kanaan. Why has this never surfaced between us before?"_

_"Teyla, does it matter?" he reached for her and she leaned backward a little, out of his reach._

_"Yes."_

She closed her eyes, remembering the night she and Kanaan had made that pledge to one another, but another memory intruded, of the recurring dream, and of Kanaan's dying words.

_"In… time," he took another bubbling breath, "…you… you will come… to realise—"_

Teyla shivered, and allowed Ronon to draw her closer.

"Promise me something, Ronon," she asked softly.

"Anything," he answered.

"Look out for the others… especially where Varnerin is concerned."

"You have my word on that," he said with just a hint of anger in his voice. He softened quickly as he asked, "What will you do now?"

"There is only one thing I can do," she said and the sorrow in her rose again as she brought Michael to mind, and through him, her missing son. "I have to find Nethaiye."

"And Michael?" She heard the hesitation in his voice as he asked of the Wraith-Human hybrid.

"I honestly do not know what I might do, when we next meet," she said, and then frowning, and for no reason she could understand, added, "If we ever do."

Ronon nodded, and she knew he had accepted her doubts.

"If you need me," he said, but did not finish.

"I know where to find you," she nodded.

"I mean it, Teyla," he said.

"I know you do, Ronon, but," she sighed, "as much as I understand your actions, the hurt remains."

"I understand," he said, and she watched the sigh that came from deep in his belly.

"Time heals, Ronon," she said, "Perhaps some day…"

Tears came to her eyes. In many ways it was much harder leaving Ronon than it had been John or any of the others. He had always been there for her; always understood. He was the brother she had always craved.

Slowly she took hold of his other hand and waited with her head bowed until he shared the gesture with her.

"I will not say goodbye to you, Ronon," she said softly. "Only wish you well until our paths cross again."

"Farewell, Teyla," he answered. "I know you will find him… and when you do—" his voice cracked. "Come back to us."

_Michael closed his eyes._

_"Give me solace, Teyla," he appealed in the rush of a whisper, "And if nothing else, do not look unkindly on _all_ of my deeds. Remember that above all else, I would have given you my life, if you had asked it."_

_"Michael?" She frowned, a dreadful ache beginning in the middle of her chest._

"One day," she whispered, and letting go, walked tear-blinded into Halling's embrace.

**

Vega stood behind the Queen watching as the Wraith drones dragged an uncooperative Michael into the laboratory. He was fighting as best he could, every step, but his strength was long since depleted and he seemed to succeed only in hurting his already injured arm still further.

She could almost feel the fear streaming off him. It was something she never expected from him.

She shifted her gaze to Todd, who stood, apparently calm, waiting beside the tray on his workbench which held a syringe of yellowish green fluid. He looked up and, for just a second, met her eyes. The resolve she saw in his expression calmed her rapid heartbeat just enough to make it easier for her to breathe. Still she jumped when the Queen spoke.

"It need not have been done in this manner," she hissed at the now growling Michael. "If you had but acquiesced."

"To you," he snarled, fear becoming defiance once more, and for that, in some small way, Vega admired him.

"So be it," the Queen snarled in return. "Either way, I _shall_ proceed with my endeavour."

"You will not prevail," he warned, but the Queen was not listening. She snapped her head around to face Todd.

"Proceed," she demanded.

**

In spite of his bravado, Michael flinched as the scientist closed the distance between them, and he tried to back away. The drones held him firmly, their hands and finger guards digging into his flesh.

He watched the fear come into the face of the Atlantean woman, and in that instant knew that the scientist had not achieved the task the Queen had given him. The rhythm of his heartbeat faltered, and he redoubled his efforts to free himself from the drones. They held him fast.

The scientist roughly grabbed his hair and pulled his head to one side, exposing his neck, and the veins there. He struggled, even though it made the sting of the needle that much sharper.

The serum flooded into him like icy fire. He could track its progress as it burst as an ache inside his head and down to squeeze his heart as if some massive bellows worked to crush him. After only a laboured breath, the pain of it began.

He clenched his teeth against the bubbling and churning that began deep inside him, but all too soon the intensity of the agonising change that was sweeping over him, and through him, overcame his resistance. He cried out, "I will kill you for this…!"

_He cried out in a pained tone, "You will die for this!" and roared again. "Others will come for me! They will destroy you—"_

_"Blah, blah, blah," Sheppard mocked him._

_"They gotta find us first," Ronon snapped._

_He roared again, fighting the restraints that held him down._

_"You're gonna need a name," Sheppard said, "How does Mike sound?"_

"…all of you!"

But even the defiant cries became wordless as the agony took hold, as his transformation accelerated, and even above his own screams he could hear the crackling and popping of his bones, sinews and flesh.

_-forgive me, Teyla- -forgive me- -forgive-_

**

Todd held his breath as the Renegade's features sharpened, becoming more Wraithlike with each moment that passed. As the familiar features of his ages-old rival began to reform before his eyes, he felt a flush of hope, but just as he believed that his modifications had worked this time, the Renegade's cries took on a different tone. They became more shrill… panicked and of a greater agony.

He sighed as he watched patches of flesh beginning to darken, twisting in a way that showed he had not completely suppressed the Iratus radicals in the Queen's DNA.

**

Vega almost whimpered as the Wraithlike creature that had once been Michael sagged between the two drones and finally they let go.

Michael stumbled to his knees and then toppled sideways. He twitched a few times and then was still.

"Well?" the Queen took a step closer. The irritation was clear in her voice, and from the way she tilted her head, Vega knew that some silent communication was passing between her and Todd.

Todd knelt, with some caution, she observed, beside Michael. He reached a hand toward Michael's neck and for a moment was still. Then, very slowly, he shook his head.

The Queen hissed, long and loud in Todd's direction and then turned and swept away, and Vega could not remain to ask him of what had passed between them. She hurried to catch up to the Wraith Queen.

_**_

It was an almost fatalistic sense of calm that settled over her as the knock sounded at the door of the home her people had given to her. Teyla turned to face the doorway as, a moment later, Halling entered.

"We are ready," he said softly.

She nodded and came to his side.

When she had returned to them, her people had expressed a desire to hold a funeral service for Kanaan, and though the thought of it kindled mixed feelings inside of her, she had agreed. He had died saving her life, not because of Michael, not directly, but because of the Wraith and their desire to eliminate the renegade hybrid, to eliminate _anyone_ with a trace of Michael's DNA.

_"Teyla, listen to me," Michael said firmly, breathing out hard, in the way she knew he did when he was controlling his temper. "The device embedded in his neck is of Wraith design. It is a seeker, programmed to find specific DNA and loaded with enough toxin to kill everyone in this room who possesses that DNA. It will only be a matter of time before it works its way free of him. Don't fight me."_

_"How do you know?" She moaned, feeling the truth from him, even as her eyes drifted back to Kanaan, who had begun to shake with convulsions._

_"I know because I designed them," he said, and she thought he sounded almost sorrowful, "a long time ago."_

Thinking on that suddenly brought to mind the question of her son's DNA, or how she herself might have been under threat from that.

"Come, Teyla, they are waiting." Halling's hand on her shoulder brought her out of her dark reveries.

"I am afraid," she confessed.

"It has been a difficult time for you," he answered, "but I believe that this will help."

She nodded and allowed him to lead her toward where the large pyre had been built. Her steps faltered as she saw the wrapped form, lying in state on top of the wooden platform.

"I—" she swallowed hard. Did she have a right to be here? Did she have any feelings beyond a deep friendship for the man Kanaan had been? Had she allowed the deep, consuming loneliness she had felt on that evening to prompt her to accept his advances; to allow her to take comfort from his gentle seduction?

_"I was a fool that did not realise his own heart," he reached for her again, sliding his fingers into her hair – leaning closer. The fluttering inside of her reached an almost overwhelming crescendo and only half serious she pushed him away, but she burned with the need for contact – to feel that intimacy._

_He caught her hand, pulled it close to breathe against her wrist, sending a shock through her so intense that she pulled away and moaned softly. He followed, moving closer again even as she backed away, her breathing coming more and more quickly._

_"You would deny me, now that you know…?" he said in a low voice that rumbled through her core._

_"Know?" she whispered, tentatively reaching to brush her fingertips against the air before his lips, "I—"_

_She let out a small cry as he suddenly reached for her, wrapped her in his arms and lifted her closer. Startled she almost beat against his shoulders, looking down into his eyes that were full of need of her…but strangely playful in a way she would never have expected._

And yet… even now… did she see Michael in that moment?

She shivered, feeling suddenly cold, uncomfortable. She had loved Kanaan, yes, but as the childhood friend he had always been. Beyond that…

_"In… time," he took another bubbling breath, "…you… you will come… to realise—"_

She took a deeper breath and finally stepped forwards.

"I am ready," she said quietly, coming to join the others. With a sigh she took the lighted torch from the hand of the Athosian man standing beside the pyre.

"We are sorry, Teyla," he said quietly, but she shook her head.

"He was a good man," she said. "Let us give him a respectful farewell. He would not have wanted us to weep."

She paused for just a moment before she pushed the torch into the dry kindling at the centre of the pyre and stepped back. Another deep sigh escaped her as the flames and heat blurred her vision.

The heat melted the canvass that the people of Atlantis had used to wrap Kanaan's body before they had delivered it from M7S-445, and in the rising temperature of the flames, his head fell slowly to the side, almost as though he had turned it.

Teyla gasped and began to take a step forward, but Halling caught her arm, as did Kara to the other side of her. An intense, deep sorrow swept over her and her vision, already blurred from the heat and the smoke, unfocussed still more, lending a surreal atmosphere to the entire ceremony.

_"Teyla…"_

She drew in another hurried breath and her heart constricted in her chest. Logically she knew there was no way that Kanaan, who now lay within the pyre, eyes open, appealing to her in desperation, could be living. Yet the tattoo that beat inside of her chest, frantic and painfully real, almost convinced her otherwise; as real as her vision before she had been taken.

_"I came for you, just like you asked." she told Kanaan._

_"Like _I_ asked," Michael corrected, stepping closer to the bars, beside Kanaan. "I was the one in your visions – appropriately disguised, of course."_

As she watched, Kanaan's hybrid features distorted and sharpened; changed, becoming more pronounced – the illusion melting away to reveal Michael amid the devastating flames.

…_Michael…!_

She took another step forwards, but was again restrained by Halling and Kara.

"But—" she began, a sickening fear and worry replacing the sorrow.

"Let him go, Teyla," Halling said, barely above a whisper. She knew he did not understand.

_"Teyla…!"_

The vision of Michael persisted, however, and he reached for her through the flames and the haze of heat.

_"Help me, Teyla, plea—"_

_-forgive me, Teyla- -forgive me- -forgi…-_

As though a cloud had lifted from the sun on a dark day, as though the smoke was suddenly borne away on a breeze, the vision came to an abrupt end…

The vision came to an abrupt end and Michael was gone.

Though her son was still missing she knew that she would find him.

Although the sadness at the thought of all that had happened in the City of the Ancients was crushing, and the responsibility she felt she had in the galaxy was a terrible weight, Teyla felt that she had finally taken a step forward. She felt a kind of freedom almost within reach. It should have been a comfort… but did not reach to warm the sudden, dreadful cold within her heart… or to banish the thought that it had all come at some terrible price.

Teyla stood with her people, sadly watching the mortal remains of her childhood friend, the man she thought of as the father of her son, reduced to ash and dust.

_fin_


End file.
